LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMEKICA. 



CHRISTIANITY 

AND 

CHILDHOOD; 



OR, 



THE RELATION OF CHILDREN TO THE 
CHURCH. 



R. J. COOKE, A. M., D. D., 

PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE U. S. GRANT UNIVERSITY. 

author of 

"Outlines of Doctrine of the Resurrection," "Reasons for 
Church Creed," Etc. 



3oiifu. 



CINCINNATI ; 

CRANSTON AND STOWE. 

NEW YORK: 

HUNT AND EATON. 
1891. 



.ok*" 



Copyright 

BY CRANSTON & STOWE, 

1891. 




PREFACE. 

9 

r I ^HE present work is designed to establish, on 
•*- Biblical and Historical grounds, the reasons for 
Child-membership in the Christian Church. Every 
institution of the Church must have some funda- 
mental reasons for its existence, otherwise it is en- 
titled to oblivion. While the literature on the corre- 
lated doctrine is exceeding voluminous, there is no 
serious attempt, with, perhaps, one or two exceptions, 
to reduce to a system the various facts which consti- 
tute the doctrine underlying the practice of those 
Churches who include children within their folds. 
There is, therefore, a real demand for a work of this 
nature. That this work now presented to the Church 
will answer the requirement, is not the province of 
the writer to decide. It has been prompted solely by 
the desire to advance within, the interests of the Re- 
deemer's kingdom. That it will be acceptable to all, 
is not expected. It certainly will not be to those who 
maintain an unreasonable adherence to the fabricated 
technicalities of theological terminology, nor to those 
who antagonize the conservative-progressive method 
of the best thought of the present. 

In my ideal of it, I have but skirted the rim of 
this great argument, yet no important fact has been 



2 PREFACE. 

ignored or indifferently treated, while the many di- 
visions have been joined in an articulate, systematic 
whole. The subject is immense, is of such supreme 
importance in its results, and so varied in its relations 
to the cardinal doctrines of Christianity, that it would 
be a miracle (not to be looked for) if any book pro- 
ducible could satisfy the critical judgment of even 
all those who may agree on the general principles. I 
have followed the truths of Scripture and the facts of 
history ; and the critic who imagines I have misin- 
terpreted both, will find it easier to utter his opinion 
than to furnish the proof. 

It will be readily perceived that not all is said that 
might be said under each theme; and that one or 
two subjects, important in themselves, have been 
wholly omitted, such as the " Post-mortem Pro- 
bation of Children," and the " Origin and Scope of the 
Catechumenate in the Primitive Church." Should 
this work receive the approbation of those interested 
in the position of children in the Christian scheme of 
redemption, these subjects and others will be added. 
In the meantime the English reader will find full 
information concerning catechumens in Bingham's 
"Antiquities of the Christian Church," Vol. I, and 
Neander's " History of the Christian Church," trans- 
lated by Torrey, Vol. I. One thing the author de- 
sires to emphasize, and that is, that these pages are 
not designed to be polemic in character or tone. 
They were not written in that spirit. It is devoutly 



PREFACE. 3 

hoped that no written word of mine will ever wound 
the denominational feeling of any child of God. I 
have been loyal to the Truth, as prolonged investiga- 
tion has made it clear. Alas! the history of the 
Church only too clearly shows that that very loyalty 
is ofttimes the severest accusation of error. My sole 
aim has been to set forth, in sun-clear manner, the 
true grounds for the practice of the Church, and to 
awaken zeal in the Divinely appointed shepherds for 
the lambs of the Flock. 

Were I certain that no discordant sound would 
arise from this work, written in behalf of children, 
I would, as a testimony to much that is contained in 
these pages, inscribe it to the memory of a bright, 
sweet boy, who, after five years of blissful life, full 
of Christian joy, song, and prayer, w r ent out one even- 
ing, in the October sunset, while the first pages of this 
book were being written, to the Church of the first- 
born, which is without fault before the throne of God. 

R. J. C. 

August, 1891. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

Preface, 1 

CHAPTEE I. 
Heathenism and Childhood, 7 

CHAPTER II. 
Christianity and Childhood, 34 

CHAPTER III. 
Children under Adam, 51 

CHAPTER IV. 
Children under Christ, 97 

CHAPTER V. 
The Core of the Problem, 114 

CHAPTER VI. 
Christ's Recognition of Child-membership, 125 

CHAPTER VII. 

The Unity of the Church in the Old and New Testa- 
ments, 140 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The Position of Children in the Old Testament Church, . 161 

5 



6 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTEK IX. 

PAGE. 

Children in the Church of the New Testament (The 
Mother Church at Jerusalem), .171 

CHAPTER X. 

Children in the Church op the New Testament (Among 
the Gentiles and the Dispersion), 191 

CHAPTER XI. 
The Relation of Children to the Sacraments, 215 



Index, 227 



Christianity and Childhood. 



CHAPTER L 

HEATHENISM AND CHILDHOOD. 

WHEN the religion of Jesus advanced beyond the 
walls of Jerusalem, and began its mission to 
the Gentiles, it came into immediate conflict with 
world-powers — social, political, and religious — such as 
mankind had never witnessed before, and the like of 
which will never be seen again. 

By the force of her arms, the wisdom of her states- 
men, the vigor of her laws, and the majesty of her 
name, Rome had expanded the limits of her domain 
till the boundaries of the empire, under Augustus, 
stretched from the Rhine and the Danube on the 
north, to the African and Arabian deserts on the 
south ; and from the Atlantic Ocean on the west, to 
the Euphrates on the east. Within this territory, 
which embraced those fair countries where civiliza- 
tion, letters, the arts, and the sciences had their birth, 
and had attained their highest development, all phi- 
losophies were taught, all religions tolerated,* and, 

*"The various modes of worship which prevailed in the 
Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true, 
by the philosopher as equally false, and by the magistrate as 
equally useful." (Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap, ii, where 
see notes; and also Dean Milman's note to a similar passage in 
chap, xv, I, where, on the other hand, the intolerant spirit of 

7 



8 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

through the universal decay of morals, all wickedness 
was practiced. 

Ancient traditions and beliefs had lost their power. 
The Egyptian still worshiped Isis and Serapis, and 
the many monster-headed representations of his di- 
vinities; the Phoenician and the Chaldean still had 
recourse to Bel, and indulged in the impure rites of 
Astarte; the gods of Greece and of Rome were still 
invoked by the priests, and their temples, often the 
centers of pollution,* were still thronged by the mul- 
titudes; but the old faiths in Providence, in the real 
existence of the very gods whose altars were fragrant 
with incense, in the rewards of virtue and the punish- 
ment of vice, — these had departed. The Elder Pliny 
considered it degrading to the idea of a supreme God 
when men imagined that he could or would take in- 
terest in human affairs, and finally concluded, from the 
practices of men throughout the world, who at all 
hours and in all places invoked fortune, that God was 
uncertain.f 



paganism is fully set forth.) Nevertheless, it can not be doubted 
that the policy of Augustus was in favor of universal religious 
toleration. "Le favori intelligent d'Auguste eleve le Pantheon, 
et invite les dieux de toutes les nations a se reunir pour vivre 
en paix sous un meme toit." (De Broglie, L'Eglise et L'Ernpire 
Eomain, Sixieme Edition, p. 5.) 

* " But if I add what all know and will readily admit to be 
the fact — that in the temples adulteries are arranged ; ... 
that often in the houses of the temple-keepers and priests, under 
the sacrificial fillets, and the sacred hats and the purple robes, 
amid the fumes of incense, deeds of licentiousness are done." 
(Tertul., Apology, chap, xv.) 

tNat. Hist., Book II, chap, vii: "Mittendum vero agere 
curaru illud, quidquid est summum." 



HEATHENISM AND CHILDHOOD. 9 

Seneca* testifies to the general contempt for the 
gods which had gradually permeated the minds of 
all, and Juvenal f utters the same complaint when he 
says that, owing to the corruptions of the time, 
one may be believed to have perjured himself with 
impunity at the altars of all the gods that were 
dear to Rome. Lucian J introduces one of the deities, 
Momus, as saying to Apollo, that since the number 
of divinities has increased, perjury and sacrilege are so 
much the more prevalent, while the old gods are 
being totally despised. 

Paradoxical as it may seem to one who has never 
seriously studied the human heart, with this general 
skepticism and contempt for the ancient deities, there 
arose in Rome, which in itself was an epitome of' the 
empire, a passion for foreign superstitions. Tacitus, 
the historian of that age, narrates the interest of Ger- 
manicus in the Egyptian gods; Vespasian consulted 
the gods of Memphis, and, being desirous of the im- 
perial purple, offered sacrifice to a local deity on 
Mount Carmel. Nero worshiped the licentious Dea 
Syra; Marcus Aurelius, Severus, Commodus, Cara- 
calla, and Heliogabalus adored Isis and Serapis, the 
Persian Mithras and the Syrian deities. During the 
last days of the Republic the number of gods and 
sacred ceremonies constantly increased until at the 



*" How great in our time is the madness of men! They 
whisper to the gods most abominable prayers. . . . What 
they would not have men know, they tell to God — quod scire 
hominum nolunt, Deo narrant." (Ep. x.) 

tSat. Ill, 145; XIII, 75; VI, 344. 

iDeorum Concilio. 



10 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

time of Christ the Imperial City, which, according to 
Tacitus, " was the common sink into which every- 
thing infamous and abominable flowed like a torrent 
from all quarters of the world " (Annals, Bk. XV, 44), 
had become glutted with divinities and embarrassed 
with religious rites, the very names of which were un- 
known to earlier days. The Christian apologist, Ter- 
tullian, charges this multiplying of the gods on the 
heathen with his usual vehemence, and declares that 
those deities who had formerly been denied admission 
to Rome were now worshiped with honor.* 

Disbelief in the immortality of the soul had be- 
come almost universal. The reasonings of the philos- 
ophers usually ended with a denial or an uncertain 
opinion, and as theoretical doubts with the few become 
practical unbelief with the many, these negations 
having filtered down through society, were not long 
in producing positive effects upon the beliefs of the 
people. 

Among the Athenians, long prior to the advent of 
the gospel, the doctrine of a future state had become 
a matter of speculation. The poets had sung the 
early faith of mankind, but many philosophers either 
ridiculed the form or denied the truths which the poets 
had immortalized in verse, and the multitude soon 
learned to treat them as unconsoling and baseless 
fables. Plato could give no sure word. Aristotle 



* The Consuls Piso and Gabinus had forbidden the worship 
of Serapis and Isis and Arpocrates, with their dog-headed 
friend, Anubis, and had overthrown their altars and expelled 
them from the country. See the spirited passage in the sixth 
chapter of the " Apology for the Christians." 



HEATHENISM AND CHILDHOOD. 11 

wavered in his opinions. In several instances he 
seems to have retained the ancient belief; but in the 
Nicornachean Ethics he plainly teaches that death is 
the most dreadful of all things, the end of all things; 
aud that for him who is dead there remains nothing 
more, whether of good or of evil. What the doctrine 
of the Cyreniacs, the Skeptics, and the Epicurean herd 
was, is well known. Polybius, who died about one 
hundred and twenty-five years before the birth of 
Christ, shows that this unbelief in a future state had 
become in his time a fashion among all classes — a 
fact not without parallel in modern history. 

The influence of Greece upon Roman manners and 
beliefs was of a most corrupting character, and, as a 
result, the Romans, no less than the Greeks, had 
gradually surrendered to the same infidelity. Sixty- 
three years before Christ, Caius Caesar solemnly de- 
clared in the Senate, on the occasion of the trial of the 
Catiline conspirators, that death is a repose from ca- 
lamity, not a torment; and that it puts an end to 
all the evils to which mortals are subject. Both 
Cato and Cicero spoke in reply, but neither expressed 
any disapprobation of Caesar's bold denial of the 
soul's immortality,* which, had it not been the senti- 



*De Broglie, in his great work, "L'Eglise et L'Emp. Rom.," 
speaks of the indignation which Caesar aroused in the soul of 
Cato, " en professant des ruaxirnes d'irreligion triviale," but it 
was certainly not on this occasion. Cato barely mentions the 
denial of Caesar, and what he did say gave no indication of 
wrath. The truth is that the intelligent classes of that period 
had lost faith in everything but the grandeur and destiny of 
Rome. Compare Sallust, Bell. Catil., c. 51, 52 ; Cicero in Catil., 
iv, 4, 5, 



12 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

merit of the Assembly, be would bave been too politic 
to make, since be was at that time, by virtue of 
his office, chief pontiff of the State religion, the high- 
priest of Rome, the interpreter of the wills of the 
gods. In the First Book of the Tusculan Disputa- 
tions, Cicero testifies to the universal unbelief. He 
affirms that there were crowds of augurs who denied 
the immortality of the soul, " and that not only Epi- 
cureans, whom I regard very little, but, somehow or 
other, almost every man of letters." Seneca con- 
fessed : " I once flattered myself with the expectation 
of a future state, because I believed others " (Ep. 102) ; 
and in Epistle 55 it will be seen that his hope lay in 
a return to non-existence. Horace, in the splendid 
days of Augustus, wrote to his friend Sextius : " Pres- 
ently shall night oppress thee, and the ghosts of fable 
and the gloomy mansion of Pluto." (Odes, Bk. I, 4. 
See also Virgil, Geog. II, 490-492.) The well-known 
lines of Juvenal show that the old faith was dead in 
the hearts of the men of that age, who were without 
God or hope in the world. 

" That there are many ghosts and subterranean realms, 
And a boat-pole, and black frogs in the Stygian Gulf, 
And that so many thousands press over in one boat, 
Not even boys believe." 

With this loss of faith in a superintending Prov- 
idence, in a life after death, and the consequent dis- 
belief in the punishment of vice and the reward 
of virtue, heathenism sunk into the lowest depths 
of sensuality, deeper than which it was not possible 
for man to go. " There will be nothing," says Juve- 
nal, " which posterity can add to our morals. Those 



HEATHENISM AND CHILDHOOD. 13 

born after us will desire and do the same things. 
Every vice stands on the summit." The voluptuous- 
ness, the sensual vices, and the profound infidelity of 
Greece had destroyed the hardy virtues of an earlier 
age, and what the corrupt influences of Greece might 
have failed to produce, the enervating manners of the 
East brought to the blossom. The Orontes flowed into 
the Tiber, as the stern satirist of the time wrote, aud 
no lasciviousness, no vice, no impure rite or ceremony 
of Eastern nations was unknown to the citizens of 
Rome.* The Orient, with its mysteries, its magic, its 
talismans, its astrologies, its bizarre gods, its bloody 
practices, its veiled women, had produced such a state 
of immorality as no historian has yet ventured or 
should attempt to describe. 

It is not my purpose to write a history of the 
morals of that age, but to show what were the pro- 
ducing causes of the frightful condition of childhood 
in heathenism when Christianity began its mission of 
mercy and beneficence ; how that the decay of family 
life, through the frequency of divorce and the increase 
of licentiousness, and the consequent neglect of chil- 
dren, the cruelty practiced upon them, the contempt 
in which they were held, in utter disregard of the 
natural feelings of the heart, were all owing to a dis- 



* R&nan's description of the morals of Antioch would apply, 
with little change, to the Eome of that period. " La legerete 
syrienne, le charlatanisme babylonien, toutes les impostures de 
l'Asia, se confondant a cette limite des deux mondes avaient 
fait d'Antioche la capitale du mesonge, la sentine de toutes les 
infamies ce thieve de boue qui, sortant par l'ern- 

bouchure de l'Oronte, venait inonder Rome, avait la sa source 
principale." (Les Apotres, p. 218, it.) 



14 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

belief in God, to a complete surrender of the spirit to 
the deified lusts of the heart, and to an abandonment 
of hope in a future life. 

In the history of modern Europe we have seen the 
consequence of unbelief upon the morals of the people, 
upon the family, and so upon the religious care and 
education of childhood. Jean Jacques Rousseau* had 
critically estimated the effect of skepticism upon 
society when he wrote concerning atheism the terrible 
sentence: " Its principles do not kill men, they hinder 
them from being born, in destroying the manners 
which multiply them, in detaching them from their 
species, in reducing all their affections to a secret 
egoism as fatal to population as to virtue." As in 
France, during the Revolution, when the teachings of 
the Encyclopedists bore their fruit; as in England, 
when deism was fashionable among all classes ; and as 
in Germany, during the Rationalistic period — so was 
it in the Roman society of the age now under consid- 
eration. The effect of philosophical skepticism, the 
development of an intense eagerness for things of the 



*Emile, Bk. IV, CEuvres de Rousseau, Vol. IX. The condi- 
tion of France at the present time may be in some measure 
understood from the following ; no other commentary on Rous- 
seau's words need be written : " In 1886 there were over six 
thousand less marriages in France than in 1887, while there 
were nearly two thousand more divorces. In the Department 
of the Seine there was one divorce for each four hundred fam- 
ilies. The birth-rate has gone back well-nigh twenty thousand, 
and since 1884 the receding current has been on the increase. 
There are nearly one hundred and fifty thousand less children 
now than four years ago. But illegitimate births are on the in- 
crease. In the same Department the ratio was twenty-five per 
cent." (Methodist Review, Jan., 1890, p. 132.) 



HEATHENISM AND CHILDHOOD. 15 

flesh, the consequent multiplicity of divinities and 
the concomitant increase of superstition and despair, — 
all tended, by the working of inevitable law, to de- 
stroy the early feelings of respect for marriage and 
the ideas of sanctity with which the family was once 
invested; to minimize its value, and so to bring about 
a shameful looseness of the marriage bond; a con- 
tempt for children, as a misfortune to be avoided ; an 
intensification of " secret egoism," and its fruit — re- 
lentless cruelty. 

The family was once sacred among the Romans. 
For five hundred and twenty years from the founding 
of the city, divorce was unknown. But in the time 
of Augustus celibacy became the fashion; marriage 
was lightly esteemed, and to such an alarming extent 
had licentiousness undermined this foundation of the 
State, that laws were enacted by which rewards were 
conferred upon those who were married and had 
become parents, and punishments by fines and dis- 
abilities inflicted upon all who obstinately remained 
single.* Horace, the poet, next to Virgil, of that 
age wrote : " The times, fertile in wickedness, have in 
the first place polluted the marriage state and [thence] 
the issue and the families. From this fountain per- 
dition has overwhelmed the nation and the people."f 
Seneca writes that the women indulged in divorce 



* Tacitus, Annals, Bk. Ill, xxv. The historian goes on to 
state that the Julian Laws were ineffectual ; to be without heirs 
was still considered as a condition that gave great advantages. 
Compare his Manners of the Germans, xviii. The usual works 
on Roman history will furnish much literature. See also Lecky's 
History of European Morals. 

tOdes, Bk. Ill, 6. 



16 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

through mere wantonness, and that they counted the 
years, not by the number of the consuls, but by the 
number of their rejected husbands — non consilium 
numero sed maritorum annos suos computant.* Ju- 
venal satirizes the women who divorced themselves 
so often that they wore out their bridal veils; and 
another poet hurls his shaft at the iniquity of the 
time and the facility for divorce when he says that 
thirteen days after the revival of the Julian Law for 
the restraint of immorality, Thalisina had already 
married her tenth husband.f Well might Tertullian 
say concerning the women of that age: "As for 
divorce, they long for it; they long for it as though it 
were the natural consequence of marriage."! 

Virtue had not fled, however, from womankind. 
The domestic life of France in the times of Louis XIV 
and his successor would never be judged by the brill- 
iant but immoral coterie dames du palace which dis- 
graced their courts and made possible the Revolution. 
Among the higher classes of Eome, as also in the 
middle and lower walks of life, there were many 
who still cherished those virtues which are of more 
value to the world than its philosophy and its acquisi- 
tions of science and increase of wealth — virtues which 
underlie all civilization, and without which national 
life is impossible. But it can not be ignored that at 
this period family life was despised by the majority, 
and a life of gayety and profligacy substituted for it 
by women of the first rank in Roman society. It is 

* De Benef ., Ill, 6. t Martial, Epigram 7, Bk. VI. 
% Apolog., 6. 



HEATHENISM AND CHILDHOOD. 17 

a remarkable fact in the history of morals that to 
such a degree had the licentiousness of the times in- 
creased, that the Senate was compelled to pass severe 
laws, in forlorn hope that the frightful torrent of 
iniquity among women might be stayed.* 

In such a condition of society f it is difficult to 
suppose that there would be such a thing as a pro- 
found recognition of the natural rights of childhood ; 
or that the nurture of children in the principles of 
morality and religion would be considered an im- 
perative duty. Not that there was a universal and 
absolute neglect of children. Not that mankind had 
entered into a conspiracy of hate against them, for 
there were fathers and mothers everywhere who 
cherished with beautiful affection the love of their 
children, and, superior to their religion and the cor- 
rupting influences about them, threw around the 
feebleness of childhood that instinctive love which 
Providence has imbedded in human nature for helpless 
infancy. But while this was so, society was organized 
on such principles that, outside the natural sentiment 
which might rule in the heart of the parent, there 
could be no recognition of the priceless value of the 
child as an immortal being. "The customs, legisla- 
tions, and spirit of society were not even a defense 
for life itself in its earlier years; and the character- 



* Tacitus, Annals, II, 85. See also Uhlhorn, Conflict of 
Christianity with Heathenism ; and compare Gibbon's Decline 
and Fall, chapter xxiii, for a view of morals prevalent in 
this age. 

t See Geikie, Life of Christ, chapter xxxvii ; Farrar's Early 
Days of Christianity, chapter i. 

2 



18 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

istic tone of literature, as it was carried at that very 
time toward almost its highest historical development, 
shows how haughtily careless society was, in what 
we call the classic ages, of what to us appear its im- 
perative and primary duty. Care for the child, when 
required at all, was so only because of the citizenship 
which was about to be his." * Lust and Hate go 
hand in hand, and the world's history only too 
clearly demonstrates that an age in which unbelief 
and profligacy of manners usurp the heroic virtues 
of chaste living and sober thinking, is also an age of 
bestiality and cruelty. The "secret egoism" of 
Rousseau is intense selfishness, which in its last 
analysis is the essence of all evil, as love is the fount- 
ain of all good. 

It was not in Rome only that indifference towards 
childhood was prevalent, nor was such inhumanity 
wholly owing to the universal corruption of the age 
or the extreme poverty of the lower classes. Heathen- 
ism could produce nothing better. Whenever and 
wherever heathenism came to the flower, it tended to 
repress the better instincts of humanity; for, by 
developing the passions of men through the reflex in- 
fluence of the worship they offered to the gods, it 
could not do other than produce an insensibility to 
human suffering, as the butcheries of the amphitheaters 
testify to the callousness of the age, and a terrible 
cruelty, or at least indifference, toward helpless child- 
hood. " The exposition of children," says Gibbon, 
" was the prevailing and stubborn vice of antiquity. 



* The Divine Origin of Christianity, p. 141 ; R. S. Storrs, 
D. D., LL. D., New York. 



HEATHENISM AND CHILDHOOD. 19 

It was sometimes prescribed, often permitted, almost 
always practiced with impunity, by the nations which 
never entertained the Roman ideas of paternal power; 
and the dramatic poets who appeal to the human 
heart, represent with indifference a popular custom, 
which was palliated by the motive of economy and 
compassion. If the father could subdue his own 
feelings, he might escape, though not the censure, at 
least the chastisement of the laws; and the Roman 
Empire was stained with the blood of infants, till such 
murders were included by Valentinian and his col- 
leagues, in the letter and spirit of the Cornelian law." * 
But the exposure of children was not the only 

* It will be remembered, however, that at this time the 
humanizing influence of Christianity had, to some extent, per- 
meated the empire. One would think that either Guizot or 
Milman would have annotated the sentence following the third 
note in chapter xliv, where Gibbon refers to the humanity of 
Paulus. If I remember correctly, this occurred under Severus, 
when Christianity had already been in the world for two hun- 
dred and twenty-five years. '"Now, it was one of the most im- 
portant services of Christianity, that, besides quickening greatly 
our benevolent affections, it definitely and dogmatically asserted 
the sinfulness of all destruction of human life as a matter of 
amusement, or of simple convenience, and thereby formed a 
new standard higher than any which then existed in the world. 
The influence of Christianity in this respect began with the 
very earliest stage of human life. The practice of abortion was 
one to which few persons in antiquity attached any deep feel- 
ing of condemnation. . . . No law in Greece, or in the 
Roman Republic, or during the greater part of the Empire, 
condemned it (see on the views of Aristotle, Latourt, Recher- 
che? liisioriques sur les Enfant s trouves, Paris, 1848, p. 9) ; and if, as 
has been thought, some measure was adopted condemnatory of 
it before the close of the Pagan Empire, that measure was 
altogether inoperative." (History of European Morals, W. E. H. 
Lecky, M. A., p. 20.) 



20 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

form in which the dehumanizing influence of heathen- 
ism manifested itself. The sacrificing of children 
was common to nearly all the nations of antiquity. 
And what is still worse, not only were they offered as 
were other human sacrifices on the altars of the Dii 
Majores, the greater gods of the national Pantheons, 
but in the East, in process of time, it was not uncom- 
mon for them to be brought up to the vilest uses in 
the rites of sensual worship. 

Of all the ancient forms of idolatry that of Moloch, 
the Phoenician god of the destructive principle in 
nature, was the most revolting. To him children 
were publicly sacrificed. At Carthage he was wor- 
shiped as Saturn, the same who in Roman mythology 
was portrayed as devouring his own children. This 
worship, with the obscene rites of his divine paramour, 
became familiar at an early date to all the nations of 
the East. Moloch was represented by a colossal 
brazen image of a seated human figure, with a bull's 
head and outstretched arms ever ready to receive the 
offerings. Into these open arms, the bodies of little 
children and infants were thrown, whence they rolled 
off into a glowing furnace beneath. On the day ap- 
pointed, mothers brought their little ones, and, lest 
the frantic cries of these should detract from their 
value as sacrifices, kissed and caressed them until their 
turn came, when they were taken by the priest and 
flung into the furnace; the drums and trumpets 
meanwhile beating and shrieking to drown the pitiful 
cries of the helpless victims.* The Christian writers 

* Among the Romans the fable was that Ops (works), the 
wife of Saturn (time), hid Jupiter among the Corybantes on 



HEATHENISM AND CHILDHOOD. 21 

of the first centuries exhausted the possibilities of 
language in giving vent to their horror at such bar- 
barities. " I can not find language," says Lactantius, 
"to speak of the infants who were immolated to the 
same Saturn, on account of his hatred of Jupiter. To 
think that men were so barbarous, so savage that they 
gave the name of sacrifice to the slaughter of their 
own children ; that is, to a deed foul, and to be held in 
detestation by the human race; since without any re- 
gard to parental affection, they destroyed tender and 
innocent lives at an age which is especially pleasing 
to parents, and surpassed in brutality the savageness 
of all beasts, which (savage as they are) still love their 
offspring." f 

The worship of Moloch prevailed among all the 
tribes of Canaan and of Syria, and among the 
Carthaginians, who brought it from Phoenicia, their 
mother country. 

It was the custom in ancient Carthage and else- 
where, in times of sore distress or public calamity of 
any kind, for the rulers of the city to sacrifice the best 
beloved of their children as a propitiatory offering to 
the avenging cities. El, the highest god in the Car- 
thaginian calendar, once placed his own son on the 
altar, and slew him with his own hand. Having such 
an example constantly before them, the people would 
not be slow to imitate it, for pious or political rea- 

Mount Ida, lest Saturn should devour him, as he had her other 
children. It was the custom of the Corybantes to heat drums 
and cymbals while the sacrifices were offered, and the noise of 
the instruments prevented Saturn from hearing the cries of the 
infant Jupiter. 

tTbe Divine Institutes, chapter xxi, Clark's Ed. 



22 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD, 

sons, when the wrath of the gods rested on their de- 
voted city. Lactantius* narrates that the Carthagin- 
ians offered human sacrifices to Saturn, and that, 
when they were conquered by Agathocles, the king 
of the Sicilians, believing that god to be angry with 
them, they immolated on his altars as an expiation two 
hundred sons of the nobles. These boys were taken 
instead of those youths who were brought up for this 
purpose of sacrifice, because it was discovered that 
many families, influenced more by natural affection 
than religious fear, had secreted their offspring. But 
such was the terrible effect of this great sacrifice upon 
the minds of the people that, instead of producing a 
reaction against such a cruel divinity, an uncontrolla- 
ble frenzy, easily explainable, took possession of them, 
and three hundred boys were brought forth and 
offered up as free-will offerings to the implacable deity. 
This mode of worship continued there until it was 
abolished by the Eoman arms under the proconsul 
Tiberius. He made several attempts to suppress it 
without success, until finally, making a dread example 
in true Roman fashion, he hung the priests of these 
bloody rites on the trees of their sacred grove. 

To this same worship, which, as stated, the Car- 
thaginians derived from the Phoenicians, the Hebrew 
people were constantly exposed from their first settle- 
ment in Canaan. In Leviticus xviii, 21, is the statute : 
" Thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through 
the fire to Moloch." Also in chapter xx: "And the 
Lord spake unto Moses saying, Again thou shalt say 

* Instit. I, xxi ; Rawlinson, The Religions of the Ancient 
World, p. 156 ; Tertull., Apolog., ix. 



HEATHENISM AND CHILDHOOD. 23 

to the children of Israel, Whosoever he be of the 
children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in 
in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Moloch, he 
shall surely be put to death ; the people of the land 
shall stone him with stones." But this command- 
ment, like many others, was violated when the nation 
fell into idolatry. Among the many iniquities listed 
in Psalm cvi against the early Israelites is this very 
crime of offering their children to Moloch : " But 
they were mingled among the heathen, and learned 
their works. And they served their idols, which 
were a snare unto them. Yea, they sacrificed their 
sons and their daughters unto devils, and they shed 
innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and 
their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols 
of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood." 

That these idols of Canaan were fire-gods, and 
so were worshiped by purifications through fire, hu- 
man sacrifices, offering of the first-born, and other 
inhuman rites, is beyond question. In 1 Kings xi, 7, 
we read that Solomon, having his heart turned by 
his Ammonite wives, set up, no doubt from political 
reasons, the "abomination of the children of Amnion" 
on the Mount of Olives. In Jeremiah vii, 31, ref- 
erence is made to the Hebrew worship of Moloch, 
and in chapter xix, 5, it is written : " They have 
built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons 
with fire for burnt-offerings unto Baal, which I com- 
manded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind." 
Similar allusions will be found in Ezekiel xvi, 20, 21, 
26 ; xxxiii, 37. 

These passages prove those critics to be in error 



24 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

who, following the lead of E. Kimchi and Mainion- 
ides,* supposed that the children were not consumed, 
but " passed through " and returned to the parents. 
For as Hengstenberg observes on Ezekiel xvi, 24 : 
" That the consequence of this passing through was 
death, appears from the foregoing words, ' Thou didst 
slay them/ and also from the phrase ' to devour ? in 
verse 20. The passing through was the mode of 
slaying." This is evident from 2 Kings xvii, 17 : 
"And they caused their sons and their daughters to 
pass through the fire." (R. V.) But the most re- 
markable passage is 2 Chronicles xxviii, 3, where the 
iniquity of Ahaz is described : " Moreover he burnt 
incense in the valley of Hinnom, and burnt his chil- 
dren in the fire, after the abominations of the nations 
whom Jehovah had driven out before the children of 
Israel." (See the parallel passage, 2 Kings xvi, 3.) Dur- 
ing the revival under Josiah the self-mutilated priests 
of the obscene rifces, who had found lodgment near 
the temple of Jehovah, were " put down ;" the houses 
of the Kedoshim, where the women wove curtains for 
the Asherah, were broken in pieces ; the worship of 
Ashtoreth, during which mothers flung their children 
from the walls of the temple, and were afterwards 
gathered up and placed upon the sacrificial altar,f was 
abolished. "And he defiled Tophet, which is in the 
valley of Hinnom, that no man might make his son 
or his daughter to pass through the fire to Moloch." 
(2 Kings xxiii, 10.) 



* More Nevochiin, Eng. Trans, under title "Guide of the 
Perplexed," Vol. II, Heb. Lit. Soc. 
t Geikie. Hours with the Bible. 



HEATHENISM AND CHILDHOOD. 25 

It is evident from these passages that the practice 
of sacrificing children to Moloch, or Milcom, or Me- 
lech, as this god is variously called, was wide-spread 
among all the nations of the East. In 2 Kings xviii, 
31, we find that the Sepharvites, a nation who were 
settled in Samaria by the king of Assyria on the re- 
moval of the Israelites to that country, were addicted 
to this worship. Dr. Adam Clarke thinks that these 
Sepharvites probably came from the cities of the 
Medes. Rawlinson says :* " The chief seats of the 
sun-god's worship in Chaldea appear to have been the 
two famous cities of Larsa (Ellasar ?) and Sippara. . . . 
At Sippara the worship of the sun-god was so pre- 
dominant that Abydenus, probably following Berosus, 
<s$lls the town Heliopolis. There can be little doubt 
that the Adrammelech, or ' Fire-king,' whose wor- 
ship the Sepharvites (the people of Sippara) intro- 
duced into Samaria, was this deity." This much is 
certain, that when they came into Samaria they 
brought this worship with them. "And the Sephar- 
vites burnt their children in fire to Adrammelech and 
Anammelech, the gods of the Sepharvaim." (2 Kings 
xviii, 31.) 

Among the ancient Greeks we find the same per- 
version of human instincts. Plutarch is authority for 
the statement that, according to the laws of Lycurgus, 
which prevailed in Lacedsemon, the father not being 
allowed to do as he pleased with his newly born in- 
fant, was compelled to bring him to a place called the 
Apothetae, where were certain ones appointed to ex- 
amine all children brought before them. The duty 

* Ancient Monarchies, Vol. I, p. 127. 



26 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

of these examiners was carefully to note the physical 
condition of the infant, and if it was found perfect a 
certain share of land was allotted to it. But if it 
was in any manner deformed, or had a weak constitu- 
tion, it was condemned and thrown into a deep chasm 
at the base of Mt. Taygetus, to be devoured by wild 
beasts or birds of prey. Plutarch finds no fault with 
this ; rather does he, at the close of his Life of Lycur- 
gus, pass a eulogy on the wisdom and equity of his 
laws. At Sparta, originally, a man was sacrificed in 
the rites celebrating the honor of Diana Orthia; but 
Lycurgus substituted for this the whipping of boys 
at her altar. The whipping was performed in the se- 
verest manner; and, lest compassion should enter the 
heart of the flogger, a priest stood by holding in his 
hand a statuette of the goddess, which became insup- 
portable if the blows became less frequent or lost 
their fierceness. The parents exhorted the sufferer to 
endure bravely that to him a monument might be 
raised, and much honor for having such a son be given 
to them. Tenderness and love were stifled in the 
human breast; for the boys were often whipped to death, 
as at the altar of Bacchus in Arcadia young girls were 
beaten to death with rods.* 

The practice of exposing children to beasts was 
not confined to Lacedsemon. It was prevalent in 
many other parts of Greece, and more or less resorted 
to in all nations. The most eminent philosophers of 
antiquity, some of whom in these days of religious 
eclecticism are cited as competitors with Jesus, who 



Potter's Greek Antiquities, Vol. I, p. 193. 



HEATHENISM AND CHILDHOOD. 27 

raised an altar of Pity in every Christian heart advo- 
cated the inhuman practice in their writings. Socrates 
even in the " Thetetus" is made by Plato to speak in 
a slighting manner of the sorrows of mothers when 
their infants were taken from them. Aristotle de- 
clares in his Politics* that a law should be made 
prohibiting the bringing up of any child maimed or 
of unsound constitution; and that when the laws of a 
country forbade the exposition of children, there 
should be a limit to the number born. But if, as 
might be the case, the number should be reached, the 
probability of increasing it should be destroyed by 
resorting to what is practically prenatal murder. 
Plato is of the same opinion. f In his Republic 
wives are held in common, and their children are 
also common. Xo parent is to know his own child, 
and no child shall know his parent. He would not 
have children born after the parents have passed a 
certain age. Such children must not be allowed to 
see the light, but if born they should be exposed. 
"As respects then,"' he ordains, "the children of 
worthv persons, I think, they should convey them to 
some retirement, to certain nurses dwelling apart in 
a certain quarter of the city ; but as for the children 
of the more depraved, or such of the rest as may be 
maimed or lame, they will hide them as is right, in 
some secret and obscure place." In another place | 
he speaks of educating the children of good parents, 
and of secretly dispersing the children of bad parents 
among the other citizens. 



♦Book VIL 16. t Republic, V, 457. JTimaeus, 18, 19. 



28 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

Of the uu natural vice paederastia, so common 
among the Greeks that Cicero, in his Tasculan Dis- 
putations, shows it to have been indulged in by 
philosophers, poets, and learned men, nothing must 
be said. On that crime the Apostle in his Epistle to 
the Romans has fixed his indelible brand. * 

Such then was the tenderness, the respect and the 
sacredness which heathenism produced for childhood 
in Greece, Nor shall we find any thing much dis- 
similar in the civilization which succeeded it. The 
historian Dionysius Halicarnassus informs us, in his 
book on Roman Antiquities, that Romulus, the 
founder of the Roman State, compelled the citizens 
to rear all their male children and the first-born of 
the females. From this it is inferred all females 
might be destroyed but the eldest. If the male 
children were deformed, the parents were allowed to 
expose them after showing them to five of their 
neighbors as witnesses, no doubt, to their deformity or 
feeble constitution. Cicero, in the third book of his 



*The vigorous language of Dr. Dollinger will convey to 
the student a vivid picture of heathen morality. " Bei den 
Griechen tritt das Laster der Paederastie mit alien Symptornen 
einer grossen nationalen Krankheit, gleichsam eines ethischen 
Miasma auf ; es zeigt sich als ein Gefiihl, das starker unci hefti- 
ger wirkte als die Weiberliebe bei andern Volkern, massloser, 
leidenschaftlicher in seinen Ausbriichen war. Easende Eifer- 
sucht, unbedingte Hingebung, sinnliche Gluth, zartliche 
Tandelei, nachtliches Weilen vor der Thiire des Geliebten. 
Alles, was zur Carricatur der natiirlichen Geschlechtsliebe ge- 
hort, findet sich dabei. ... In der ganzen Literatur der 
vorchristlichen Periode ist kaum ein Schriftsteller zu finden, 
der sich entschieden dagegen erklart hatte." (Heidenthum 
und Judenthum, p. 684, ff.) See also C. Schmidt's Essai his- 
torique sur la Soc. dans le mond romaine, Paris, 1853. 



HEATHENISM AND CHILDHOOD. 29 

" Laws/' has been interpreted as teaching that this 
law of Romulus for destroying children was con- 
firmed by the celebrated Twelve Tables, the founda- 
tion of Roman Jurisprudence. Merivale * says that 
these Tables continued unabated at least in theory to 
a late period of the Empire. According to the 
Fourth Table, the father of a family had complete 
control of his child in all matters of life and death. 
To understand fully the significance of such a law, 
it is necessary that one should remember that accord- 
ing to Roman Law the family rested upon a civil 
basis rather than upon the ties of religion. The wife 
was considered in law as a daughter, and like the 
children was not a person (jpersond), but a thing (res), 
for a person was one having or capable of having 
rights. But the wife had no rights, the children had 
no rights. At the head of the family stood the 
paterfamilias alone. He was subject to none. He 
did not represent the family, he was the family, since 
outside of him the members had no legal existence. 
He was sui juris, all other members of the family 
were alieni juris since they, his wife, his children, 
children's children and slaves were his property. 
The head of the Roman family possessed supreme 
power over every member of it. He could do as he 
pleased with his children without fear of law, he 
acted rather under its protection. This authority 
was known as the Patria Potestas. By virtue of 
this law the infant could be exposed, the child 
scourged, imprisoned for life, kept at hard labor with 
the slaves, or sold into perpetual servitude. In pro- 
* Conversion of the Bornan Empire, Note Q, p. 221. 



30 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

cess of time the position of the child was ameliorated, 
but it was not until the accession of Constautine 
that the father was condemned for killing his off- 
spring.* It is Gibbon,! who, usually gilding the 
darker features of heathenism with a choice but 
specious vocabulary, says : " At the call of indigence 
or avarice, the master of a family could dispose of 
his children or his slaves. But the condition of the 
slave was far more advantageous, since he regained 
by the first manumission, his alienated freedom; the 
son was again restored to his unnatural father; he 
might be condemned to servitude a second and a third 
time, and it was not till after the third sale and de- 
liverance, that he was enfranchised from the domestic 
power which had been so repeatedly abused. . . . 
The majesty of a parent was armed with the power 
of life and death, and the examples of such bloody 
executions which were sometimes praised and never 
punished, may be traced in the annals of Rome 
beyond the times of Pompey and Augustus." J It 
was the Emperor Claudius who ordered his own 
daughter to be stripped and exposed. Octavius, the 
father of Augustus, once determined to take the life 
of his infant son because a certain Senator had pre- 
dicted for the boy future supremacy over the world 



* Institutes of Justinian, Sandars, London, 1859, pp. 28, 
30, 102. 

t Decline and Fall, chapter xliv. 

t For the laws on this subject see D. of Halicarnassus, Aniiq. 
Lib. II; Ulp. Fragm. t. x. No. 1; Caius Conn. Lib. I; 132. 
Byncker Shoek de jure occid. liberos, Cap. 6. Thoinasius dissert. 
tit. Inst, de patria potest., C. 1 ; referred to by M. Troplong, 
rinfluen. d. Christ, 264. 



HEATHENISM AND CHILDHOOD. 31 

as master of Rome. The teachings of Plato and of 
Aristotle, the example of other nations and certain 
fables of the gods, as that concerning Jupiter and 
Ganymede, found a congenial soil in the debauchery 
of the period when Christianity came among men as 
the nursing mother of children Cicero bears witness 
to the severity of the age just preceding the advent 
of Christ, and Terence,* the author of that sublime 
sentence Homo sum, nihil a me alienum puto, which is 
far in advance of certain Christian ethics of our own 
day, presented in the theater at Rome a play in 
which figured a character, who, having commanded 
his wife to expose their infant daughter, flies into a 
passion because she had given the child to a woman 
by which means the infant had escaped death. Seneca,f 
a contemporary of St. Paul, like other philosophers 
referred to, saw no crime in the exposition and mur- 
der of children, but on the contrary defended such 
iniquities in the following manner : " We destroy mad 
dogs," says he, " we even kill a fierce and unmanageable 
ox, and into sick sheep we let drive the iron lest they 
should infest the flock ; we destroy the life of un- 
natural offspring (portentosos fetus); and in like man- 
ner we drown children if they are born disabled or 
monstrous." Such were the sentiments of a philoso- 
pher whose writings contain the loftiest utterances 
and the final word, not forgetting the thoughts of 



*Heut., act iv, scene 1. 

tDe Ira, Lib. I, xv; also De Benef., Ill, 31. See Quintilian 
Dec,, 306, VI ; also Pliny Nat. Hist., Book XXVIII, chapter ii, 
where he speaks of those who hunt for the brains and marrow 
of infants. 



32 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

Marcus Aurelius, of that philosophy which perhaps 
alone of all ancient systems still awakens in us the 
profoundest interest. But if such were the views of a 
Seneca, who, notwithstanding his glaring inconsisten- 
cies is considered as being of " an ardent and gener- 
ous temperament, of far-sighted and sincere hu- 
manity," what must have been the moral attitude of 
the unthinking masses of the empire? 

With this view of the condition of childhood in 
heathenism before us, and knowing Christianity as we 
now know it, it is an interesting question to consider, 
What are the antecedent probabilities that the early 
Church would or would not throw around the children 
the same influence which she exerted on all ioho ac- 
cepted the doctrines she taught f Is it probable that 
when heathen parents were received into the Church 
their children were rejected? If so, we might ask, 
what would have been the regenerating influence of 
Christianity on society ? Would the Church have per- 
mitted herself to be allied with the heathen principle that 
the child was of value only for what it might become 
politically f It might occur to one that perhaps, and 
as a matter of fact, the Church did hold the chil- 
dren of believers in the same relation to herself as do 
Antipedobaptist denominations at the present day in 
heathen lands. But to conclude this, would be to in- 
ject the subtle refinement of an illogical theology of 
the Middle Ages into the simple belief of a people who 
never dreamed that Christianity was a philosophical 
system like those taught by the philosophers in the 
schools, which must be bolstered by technical defini- 
tions of a microscopical sort ; nor did they imagine that 



HEATHENISM AND CHILDHOOD, 33 

it was like those systems in that one must have 
reached a degree of intellectuality before he could en- 
roll himself as a disciple of the Divine Master. The 
Apostle to the heathen had declared, under the in- 
spiration of the Holy Ghost, that the children of the 
converted heathen were holy, and not only did that 
announcement forever make impossible the exposure 
or cruel treatment by Christians of their children, it 
threw around the cradle of every believer's infant 
the aureole of sanctity; and until that child volun- 
tarily renounced the religion in which he was born, 
he was held as consecrated to God. The reasons on 
which Antipedobaptists base the salvation of infants 
dying in infancy were just the very reasons why the 
Church of the apostolic age gathered the children within 
her sacred fold and kept them from the pollution of the 
world. In no instance do we read of the children of 
converted heathen — that is, of those born after the 
parents had become Christians — presenting themselves 
for membership in the household of faith. They 
were so, or were so regarded from the day of their 
birth. 



34 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 



CHAPTER II. 

CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

FEOM a careful study of the state of the heathen 
world at the coming of Christ, as sketched in the 
preceding chapter, it is evident that no religion which 
did not rise immeasurably above the religions and phi- 
losophies of that period in its conception of man, of the 
family, and in its estimate of the inherent value of 
children, could have maintained its ground, much 
less conquer an empire, in the face of the almost in- 
surmountable difficulties which crowded around the 
infant Church from the persecution under Nero to 
the accession of Constantine. Christianity without 
its peculiar humanitarianism, which was that of its 
Divine Founder, and which was in its idea and scope 
wholly dissimilar from the sentimentalism of the phi- 
losophers, would have doubtless seemed -to the masses 
of the empire as an exalted development of Stoicism, 
or as a refined system of morals worthy of admira- 
tion, but too far removed in its cold beauty from the 
social sympathies, parental cares, and every-day needs 
of the common people. A religion which stood in 
no vital relation to childhood could not have wielded 
other than a limited influence on society or the family. 
Had the Apostolic Church simply thrown around the 
child its general teachings on the sacredness of human 
life as a gift of God, it would have been in this re- 



CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 35 

spect but little superior to the laws of the empire, 
which forbade the exposure of children. Had it ex- 
erted itself in simply caring for those who had been 
deserted by their parents; in providing for poor boys 
and girls ; in awakening a sense of compassion, and of 
developing in the bosom of that hard age a tender- 
ness toward helpless infancy, it would have done no 
more than Trajan and Pliny and Hadrian, Antoninus 
Pius, Marcus Aurelius, and others did, or attempted 
to do ; for the stoic emperor, Aurelius, committed to 
the care of a praetor an institution for the guardian- 
ship of orphans. The Christian Church of that period 
must be something more than a foundling hospital. 
Various systems competed with it for the supremacy, 
and it must prove itself to be not simply a raft to 
which the strongest might cling, but the very Ark of 
God, which could preserve every believing family from 
the awful flood of corruption which every one saw was 
fast devouring the empire. 

To both the Greek and the Roman, who became 
members of the Church, Christianity must have ap- 
peared as well adapted to the family as to the adult 
individual, and in a sense really more so, not only in 
that the family was first in influence and importance 
as the foundation of the State, but also from the fact 
that with them, as with all nations, religion ever had 
a domestic basis. The acknowledged Epistles of the 
Apostle Paul demonstrate in many places his acquaint- 
ance with Roman law, as in Romans viii, 14, 21, 
where the reference is to the law of adoption, which 
" was an essentially Roman usage, and was intimately 
connected with the Roman ideas of the family. The 



36 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

maintenance of the sacra privata, the domestic rites 
of the family, was regarded by the Eomaus as a 
matter of deep political importance, and their law ac- 
cordingly described minutely the forms under which, 
in default of natural heirs, the paterfamilias might 
thus prospectively secure it." Closely connected with 
this law, and indeed the foundation of it, was the law 
Patria Potestas. It is to this law also that the Apostle 
refers as an illustration of his doctrine of deliverance 
from the " bondage of corruption." For, as already 
stated, according to this law the father had supreme 
control of his child, born or adopted, in every affair 
of life ; the family was his absolute property. He 
did not so much represent it as he absorbed it in his 
own person and acts. And, while this can not be 
pressed too far for polemic purposes in concluding 
that every adult member of a family was forced into 
or accepted in the Church on the will and authority 
of the paterfamilias who became a believer, yet never- 
theless it is most reasonable that the younger mem- 
bers would be enrolled with the parent, the whole 
becoming a Christian family. 

This phase of the question has been strangely 
overlooked by writers on this subject — I mean the 
agreement of the spirit of Christianity with the 
Eoman ideas of domestic religion. How the gospel, 
as we understand its teachings, and as announced by 
the Apostle Peter at Pentecost, harmonized with the 
Hebrew ideas of the position of children in the cove- 
nant of Abraham is well known. And there is noth- 
ing strange in the belief that, for the divine purposes 
of the ages to come, Providence had permitted this 



CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 87 

peculiar development of Roman Jurisprudence until 
the " fullness of times " had come, and more than 
permitted the establishment of the Roman religion, 
heathen as it was, upon the foundation of the family. 
No other nation had these laws of adoption, except 
the Galatians. In the Epistle to the Christians of 
that Province there is direct allusion to the patria 
potestas in chapter iv, ver. 1. With these facts in 
mind, we can understand in a fuller and clearer man- 
ner than before the significance of household baptisms 
in the New Testament. In the most natural manner 
the author of the Acts records these baptisms. There 
is no remark, no explanation; the simple fact, as a 
matter of course, is recorded only; for doubtless at 
this time the Roman ideas of the family had become 
general, and were more or less adopted in the provinces 
where proconsuls were stationed or Roman colonies 
had been established. The New Testament writers 
are true to the times in which they wrote, and it is only 
by an adequate knowledge of the manners, customs, 
and laws of those times that we can hope fully to un- 
derstand what was familiar to those for whom the 
evangelists and others immediately wrote. To what 
extent these ideas prevailed in Greece and Asia Minor 
I shall not now attempt to determine; but since the 
adoption of children is alluded to in the Epistles to 
the Ephesians, and since Ephesus was the capital of 
the Province, and the proconsul had his court there, 
it is certain that the Roman law was not unknown in 
that region. 

To the Jews of Palestine and those of the Dis- 
persion, scattered everywhere from Babylon to Rome, 



38 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

a Christianity which would have excluded children 
from the Church would have seemed from that unpre- 
cedented fact to have carried with it its own refutation, 
its own denial of its Divine origin. Among the 
Hebrews, from the days of Abraham, children were 
looked upon as a special blessing from Jehovah, and 
as included in all the promises made to Israel. 
Hence they received, when but eight days old, the seal 
of the Abrahamic covenant, which was to Israel an 
everlasting covenant ; they were taught the law, were 
members of the synagogue, of the Kahal or great as- 
sembly of Jehovah's chosen, and united with their 
parents in the memorial services of the Passover, and 
the solemn worship of the temple. To have cut the 
children off from the earthly kingdom of the Messiah 
which was the culmination of long ages of prophecy, 
and for the establishment of which in the fullness of 
time Israel itself had been brought into existence, — 
this to the Hebrews in every nation must have ap- 
peared not simply an insoluble mystery, but a provi- 
dential test of the Divine claims of the new religion. 
Further, had the Apostolic Church been a Church 
of adults only, it never could, from all that is implied 
in the foregoing, have realized in that age, as it did, 
the complete New Testament idea of the Christian 
family.* It never could have so sanctified the mar- 
riage relation, as the writings and discipline of the 
early Church show to have been the case; nor could 
it have developed the unheard-of idea of the sacred- 
ness of childhood, as that idea was fostered among the 

* See Canon Farrar's Witness of History to Christ, p. 182, 
Macmillan. 



CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 39 

primitive Christians, the catacombs of Rome bearing 
witness; from the fact that, being a society of adults 
only, it would have bad no other than a prospective 
interest in the family, and therefore its influence in 
building and protecting the family would have been 
reduced to the lowest degree. This much is certain, 
that from the days of the Apostles to the close of the 
Middle Ages not one sentence can be found against 
the Church membership of believers' children in all the 
literature of that long period of fifteen hundred years.* 
But, on the contrary, the writings of eminent leaders 
of the Church in various countries, the acts of Coun- 
cils, the decisions of Provincial Synods, the constant 
practice of the Church, East and West, and among 
the remotest tribes of Northern Europe, whither the 
gospel was carried (in some instances by Christians 
from the East, as in the case of Ulphilas, the apostle 
of the Goths, whose family belonged to one of the 
Churches in Cappadocia), all bear unbroken testimony 
to the fact of child-membership in the Church. It 
was left to the superior knowledge in divine things of 
certain fanatics who arose during the Reformation 
perio'd to discover for the first time Scriptural reasons 
for excluding children from baptism, and from mem- 
bership in the body of Christ. As a matter of history, 
it is to such a source that the ecclesiastical ban upon 
childhood owes its origin ; for the arguments which 



* In this statement I have not forgotten the effort of Tertul- 
lian to have the baptism of children delayed. This is not the 
same as rejecting them from membership in the Church, since 
owing to the novel views of the efficacy of baptism, many who 
were believers put off baptism as long as they could. 

4 



40 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

are now used in support of such views have nothing 
answering thereto in any age or among any people 
prior to that time of convulsion and change.* 

The early Church came into direct conflict with the 
various religions which were mutually tolerant 
throughout the empire, and by its sublime utterances 
concerning God, sin, and redemption, gave to man a 
new dignity, made divorce well-nigh criminal, exalted 
the marriage state,f and by its purifying and enno- 
bling influence on all relations and conditions of life 
emphasized more and more the inherent value of the 
child, his position in the Church, his relation to the 
saving doctrines which were preached in all the world 
to the saving of the nations. Christ had been born of 
a woman. The Divine Infant was the Redeemer of in- 
fants. He had taken infants to his bosom, had laid 
his hands upon them in benediction, had declared by 
his sovereign authority that they were of the kingdom 
of heaven, and had identified himself with them in the 
remarkable words, " Whosoever shall receive one 
such little child in my name, receiveth me." 

The facts were in the possession of the first Chris- 
tians, and the early Church dared not repeat the folly 
of the disciples whom Jesus rebuked for attempting to 
exclude the children from his presence, his touch, his 
attention, teaching, and prayer. The heathen world 
was offering its children at this very time to Moloch, 
to Saturn ; exposing them on the highways, or bring- 



* Moshehn, Vol. II, Cent. 16, Part II, c. 3 ; Benedict's His- 
tory of Baptism, pp. 44, 45, 46. 

tMin. FeL, Octav., c. 31; Just. Mart., Apol., I, s. 29; 
Athenag., Leg. pro Christ., s. 33; Clem., Strom., Ill, c. i. 



CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 41 

ing them up for vile purposes iu the licentious worship 
of the gods, when prompted by motives of lust, or 
gain, or economy. Against the iniquities practiced 
upon childhood the Christian writers and apologists of 
the Ante-Nicene period uttered their vigorous protests, 
in the name of God and humanity. Thus Justin 
Martyr (A. D., 114-165) : "But as for us, we have 
been taught that to expose newly born babes is the 
part of wicked men ; and this we have been taught, 
lest we should do any one an injury, and lest we 
should sin against God ; because we see that almost all 
so exposed (not only girls, but also the males) are 
brought up to prostitution." Athenagoras, in his Plea 
for the Christians, presented to the Emperor Marcus 
Aurelius, lays down with unsparing hand the enormi- 
ties of the heathen in their treatment of the young. 
Minucius Felix, who lived in the same reign, and is 
said by Jerome to have been an advocate at Rome 
prior to his conversion, also exposes the crimes of the 
age in its terrible neglect and even contempt for the 
little ones, and the inhumanity displayed in sacrificing 
them to idols. Tertullian (A. D. 193-216), who lived 
in Carthage, where, as we have seen, children were 
offered up to Saturn, says, after mentioning that fact : 
" But in regard to child-murder, ... I shall 
turn to the people. How many, think you, of those 
crowding around and gaping for Christian blood — 
how many, even of your rulers, notable for their jus- 
tice to you and their severe measures against us, may 
I charge, in their own consciences, with the sin of 
putting their offspring to death?" Lactantius, the 
Christian Cicero, records the same wickedness, and 



42 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

this same Tertullian, in his Address to the Nations, 
makes this further charge: "Although you are for- 
bidden by the laws to slay new-born infants, it so 
happens that no laws are evaded with more impunity 
or greater safety, with deliberate knowledge of the 
public and the suffrages of this entire age." 

But the Church did not exhaust her interest in 
children in useless protestations. She converted the 
parents, and nurtured their children in Christian doc- 
trine. She, in addition to this, took the children of 
the heathen, when permitted, and trained them in her 
schools for membership in the Church. Among the 
earliest writings of the primitive Church is the Epistle 
of Barnabas. By Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and 
others, it was attributed to Barnabas the Levite, of 
Cyprus, the friend and colleague of the Apostle Paul. 
Hilgenfeld* and other modern critics have decided 
that it was written at the close of the first century.f 
In this epistle the Christian is commanded thus: 
" Thou shalt not slay the child by . . . nor shalt 
thou destroy it after it is born. Thou shalt not 
withdraw thy hand from thy son or from thy daughter, 
but from their infancy thou shalt teach them the fear of 
the JjordP It is not necessary to refute here the no- 
tion that children of believing parents could be in- 
structed in religious duties without becoming, in any 
sense, Church members; for children took part in the 



*Die Apostolichen Vater, Untersuchungen iiber Inhalt, 
u. s. w. 

t N'ont pas hesite a, y avoir un monument de la theologie 
du premier age de l'eglise, et a lui assigner lu date des pre- 
mieres annees du second siecle. (Reus. Hist. d. 1. Theol. Christ » 



CHRISTIANITY AND CHILHDOOD. 43 

services of the Church, had certain positions assigned 
them during worship, and were trained for the office 
of readers as soon as they could learn to read. That 
attempts have been made and much learning spoiled 
in efforts to overthrow these facts, is nothing to the 
point. Argument, fair and unfair, learned and un- 
learned, will be brought against them as often as they 
are stated; but there they are, and there they will 
will stay, for they can never be successfully disputed.* 
" The Didache, or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," a 
treatise of about sixteen pages, discovered in 1875 by 
Dr. Bryennios, metropolitan of Nicomedia, in Asia 
Minor, is a most important document for the many 
references it makes to the sin of child-murder and the 
corruption of boys. The author was contemporary with 
Clement, the first bishop of Rome. According to Pro- 



*Even if they were catechumens, as all children were in 
later times, they were regarded, as Bingham (Antiquities, Vol. I, 
p. 10) shows, as belonging to the Church — " Forasmuch as Eu- 
sebius, Origen, and St. Jerome reckon them one of the three 
orders of the Church, and the Councils of Eliberis and Constan- 
tinople give them [the catechumens] expressly the name of 
Christians." Again he says, page 430, concerning the age at 
which one might be admitted as catechumen: "The first ques- 
tion concerns only heathen converts ; for, as for the children of 
believing parents, it is certain that as they were baptized in in- 
fancy, so they were admitted catechumens as soon as they were 
capable of learning." How long did one remain such? At the 
founding of the Church there was no such class in the Church, as 
the cases of the jailer and Lydia and Cornelius prove, but in 
after ages it became necessary. The time of probation differed 
\uth the times. Bingham mentions the fact that children (of 
believers, no doubt) were admitted before the seventh year. If 
a catechumen was in danger of dying, he was received among 
the faithful. 



44 CHBIS TIANI TY AND CH1LDH OD. 

fessors Hitchcock and Brown, editors of the American 
edition, it belongs to the second century, " possibly as 
far back as 120 A. D., hardly later than 160 A. D;" 
that is, about fifty or sixty years after the death of St. 
John. In the fourth chapter of this interesting man- 
uscript we find almost the identical words quoted 
above from the Epistle of Barnabas: "Thou shalt not 
take off thy hand from thy son and from thy daughter, 
but from youth [veor^roc] thou shalt teach them the 
fear of the Lord." On this passage we may remark 
that from the use of the word " youth " some might 
be ready to conclude that young children were not 
included ; but the word often occurs in the New Tes- 
tament, denoting the whole period from infancy up, as 
in Matthew xix, 20 : " All these things have I kept 
from my youth up." Among the commandments 
which the young ruler had kept was the fifth — " Honor 
thy father and thy mother." He was, when speaking 
to the Lord, a " young man ;" and certainly the 
phrase, " from my youth up," could not have signified 
a year or two previous, but, from the days of my in- 
fancy until now. See also Matt, x, 20; Luke xviii, 21 ; 
Acts xxvi, 4. The Epistle of Barnabas has "from 
their infancy, v but there is no occasion for supposing 
an interpolation or change in either text. Both prove, 
in connection with documents, the vital relationship 
of children to the Church, and the profound solicitude 
with which their religious instruction was regarded by 
the believers of that early age. The teaching of both 
is an echo from the Epistles of St. Paul, in which he 
admonishes both parents and children. 

Justin Martyr was born in Samaria, about 114 A. D., 



CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 45 

and suffered martyrdom under Marcus Aurelius, 165 
A. D. About the time of the writing of the Didache 
at Alexandria, the one extreme of the empire as we 
may say, Justin was composing his Apology at Rome. 
In this Apology (defense) for the Christians he says : 
"And many, both men and women, who have been 
Christ's disciples from childhood remain pure at the 
age of sixty or seventy years, and I boast that I 
could produce such from every race of men." The 
thoughtful reader will not overlook the fact that both 
the Epistle of Barnabas and the Didache lay stress 
upon teaching from "infancy," and the statement 
here made that when Justin wrote, there were mem- 
bers in the Church who were made disciples to Christ 
in their childhood. 

Irenseus, who was born before the death of the 
Apostle John, and who, as he himself tells us, was 
acquainted with Polycarp, the friend of St. John, also 
bears testimony to this universal sentiment of the 
Church; for he is writing from Gaul A. D. 182. In 
Book II, "Against Heresies," referring to Christ's 
redemptive work, he writes : " Being a master, there- 
fore he also possessed the age of a master, not de- 
spising or evading any condition of humanity, nor 
setting aside in himself that law which he had ap- 
pointed for the human race, but sanctifying every 
age by that period corresponding to it which belonged 
to himself. For he came to save all through means 
of himself — all, I say, who through him are born 
again to God — infants and children, and boys and 
youths, and old men. He therefore passed through 
every age. becoming an infant for infants, thus sane- 



46 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD, 

tifying infants; a child for children, thus sanctifying 
those who are of this age, being at the same time 
made to them an example of piety, righteousness, and 
submission; a youth for youths, becoming an example 
to youths, and thus sanctifying them for the Lord." 

Here, then, is direct testimony, and much more 
might be quoted from these writers from extreme 
points in the empire concerning the care which the 
Church of the first centuries exercised over the 
children. 

After reading such, we are not surprised to learn 
that Leonidas, the martyred father of the famous 
Origen, who was born at Alexandria when Irenseus 
was writing the above-mentioned work, was accus- 
tomed to kiss the breast of his sleeping child, regard- 
ing it as the temple of the Holy Ghost.* Being a 
temple of the Holy Ghost and excluded from the 
Church, would have been in that age two ideas utterly 
incompatible. Another most interesting proof that 
Christians brought up their children in the Church, 
is contained in the account of the death of Justin 
Martyr and those who suffered with him. Justin 
having answered at the tribunal that he was a Chris- 
tian, others who partook of the same hope were ex- 
amined : " Rusticus the prefect said to Hierax : 'And 
you, are you a Christian V Hierax said: 'Yes; I 
am a Christian, for I revere and worship the same 
God/ . Kusticus the prefect said : ' Did Justin make 
you a Christian V Hierax said : ' I was a Christian, 
and will be a Christian.' And Pseon stood up and 



* Eusebius, Eccles. Hist., Book VI, chap. ii« 



CHRISTIANITY AND CHILD HO OB. 47 

said : i I, too, am a Christian.' Rusticus the prefect 
said : l Who taught you V Paeon said : ' From our 
parents ice received this goodly confession.' Euelpistus 
said: 'I willingly heard the words of Justin. But 
from my parents also I learned to be a Christian/ " 
But these are not the only proofs. A certain 
charge made by the heathen against the Christians, 
and the manner in which the reply is made, is strong 
proof, in that it is incidental, that children were par- 
ticipants in the sacred ceremonies of the Church. The 
accusation was, that at the initiation of young novices 
an infant covered over with meal was placed before 
the candidate. Being urged on by those conducting 
him through the mysteries, the novice struck the 
covered infant, thinking it nothing but meal, till its 
blood ran freely, when all present greedily divided 
the limbs and sucked the blood of the murdered 
infant. By this awful crime, alleged the heathen, the 
Christians were pledged to each other, and covenanted 
to mutual silence. Minucius Felix states this charge 
in addition : " On a solemn day they assemble at 
the feast with all their children, sisters, mothers, peo- 
ple of every sex and of every age; then, after much 
feasting, they give way to their lust." That this feast- 
ing occurred at the same time as the killing of the 
infant, is proved from a comparison of the same ac- 
count in Tertullian's "Apologeticus," 9, and that the 
charge was a base calumny on the celebration of the 
Lord's Supper will not be called in question by any 
one conversant with the account of Christian worship 
as given by Justin Martyr in the " First Apology," 

chapters lxv, Ixvi, lxvii. The "Apostolical Constitu- 

5 



48 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

tions " may be also quoted in testimony. Some 
critics have assigned this work to the Apostolic Age, 
others to the end of the third century. Bunsen, who 
made an exhaustive analysis of the work, says : " I 
have proved in my analysis, more clearly than has 
been hitherto done, the Ante-Nicene origin of a 
book, or rather books, called by an early fiction 
'Apostolical Constitutions/ and consequently the still 
higher antiquity of the materials, both ecclesiastical 
and literary, which they contain." That they date 
back to the early days, the formative period of the 
Church, while it was yet in the death-grapple with 
paganism, is admitted by all scholars who have 
studied the subject. But in these Constitutions is this 
exhortation to Christian parents : " Do you also bap- 
tize your infants and bring them up in the nurture 
and admonition of God. For says he : ' Suffer the 
little children to come unto me, and forbid them not/ " 
The famous Cyprian, born A. D. 200, and made 
bishop of Carthage 248 A. D., is an important witness 
as to facts occurring in his day. In his treatise " On 
the Lapsed," he gives an account of what he himself 
had witnessed. During a persecution some Christian 
parents were fleeing for their lives, and in their terror 
forgot their infant daughter. The child was delivered 
up by the nurse to the magistrates, who, in order to 
defile it, or to consecrate it in their worship, gave it 
in the presence of their idol some of the bread and 
wine that had been offered in sacrifice. After awhile, 
when quiet was again restored, the parents recovered 
their polluted infant. One day the mother, with her 
little one, entered the Church during the communion, 



CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 49 

and the deacon, according to custom, gave the cup 
to the child, but it was unable to retain the wine on 
its stomach, because of the pollution of the wine drunk 
to the idol. However incredulous one may be con- 
cerning the cause of the child's sickness, the historical 
fact that children were regarded as members of the 
Church can not be disputed. The decision of the 
Council of Carthage, under the presidency of this 
same Cyprian, and in the name of sixty-six other 
bishops, concerning the baptism of infants, may also 
be cited, as also that of the Council of Eliberis, held 
about two hundred years after the apostles. At this 
Council it was decided that if any one left the Church, 
and went over to any heresy, and should again return, 
he should remain in a state of repentance for ten 
years. " But if they were infants when they were car- 
ried off, inasmuch as it was not by their own fault that 
they erred, they ought to be admitted without delay."* 
Further the learned Bingham, in his "Antiquities 
of the Christian Church," shows that, in the primitive 
Church, children were trained from their infancy to 
the reading of the Holy Scriptures, and cites in proof 
several examples mentioned by ancient historians. At 
what age children were trained for readers in the 
Church is not certain. We read of one bishop who 
was made reader when eight years old, of another 
when he was but seven, and of another, John, bishop 
of Chalons, who was a reader from his infancy; and 
also that in the Vandalic persecution in Africa, all 
the clergy in Carthage were murdered or banished, 
" among whom were many infant readers" 

* Condi. Elibertannum, Can. 2. 



50 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD, 

The period to which one is limited by the nature 
of the case prevents us from adducing other testi- 
mony, which, to unprejudiced minds, would be con- 
vincing, notwithstanding its comparatively late date. 
The inscriptions from the Catacombs tell much of the 
popular Christian belief of the early ages, and of the 
powerful influence of Christianity upon the social and 
domestic relations of those times. The limitation re- 
ferred to hinders us also from dwelling upon the laws 
of Constantine relating to child-murder (315 A. D.), 
of the selling of children (321 A. D.), and of the 
"taking up" of exposed infants (321 A. D.) ; of the 
law of Valentinian (366 A. D.), threatening severe 
punishments for the crime of exposure ; of the acts of 
the Council of Nicea (325 A. D.), and of Yaison (442 
A. D.), and especially of the humane laws of Justin- 
ian. Enough has been shown in proof that to the 
Church of Christ is owing the deliverance of child- 
hood from the bondage of corruption; that it not 
only impressed the idea of the sacredness of child- 
hood upon the nations of that early age, but, in ac- 
cordance with the teachings of the Divine Founder, 
regarded the offspring of believers as entitled to mem- 
bership in the kingdom of heaven. What was ante- 
cedently probable, we find to have become an historical 
fact. What the theological grounds are for imitating 
the primitive Church, and what the practice of the 
Apostolic Church was, may now be carefully con- 
sidered. 



CHILDREN UNDER ADAM. 51 



CHAPTER III. 

CHILDREN UNDER ADAM. 

THE position which children occupy in the Chris- 
tian system as interpreted in modern evangelical 
theology is, strange as it may seem after a study of 
the early Church, a matter yet of grim perplexity in 
some Protestant denominations. Eighteen centuries 
of Christian teaching has done but little toward a 
scientific solution of the important question of child- 
hood and the Church. It is still in great measure the 
unexplored remainder in theology. From the fact 
that this problem is intimately related to the central 
doctrine of the atonement; to the teaching office of 
the Church; to the responsibilities of parentage; to 
the continuity of Christian belief, and the symmetrical 
growth of the Church, one would suppose that the 
position which children hold relative to the Church 
and the scheme of redemption would be characterized 
in standard theological works by fullness of exposi- 
tion, clearness of statement, and definiteness of result. 
Such is not the case. It would seem that the fashion 
now obtaining in some quarters of making indefinite- 
ness the evidence of scholarship and profound knowl- 
edge had reached its climax in the treatment of this 
subject. No theme of importance to evangelicism has 
been so meagerly investigated, and consequently very 
few have been so barren of satisfactory results. An- 



52 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

thropology has held sway long enough in theological 
systems; it is now high time that psedeology should 
become the subject of earnest Christian thought from 
the stand-point of the Atonement. 

As the question now stands, chaos reigns in Prot- 
estant thought. The Anglican communion is charged 
with unevangelical views of infant regeneration and 
membership in the Church; and other Churches 
accuse- each other in similar terms, What are truly 
evangelical views has not yet been settled. Each 
denomination considers itself strictly evangelical. The 
Presbyterian Church supposed to be hampered by 
the worn-out Calvinism of the Westminster Assembly, 
which it can not repudiate and is unable to preach, 
can not solve the contradiction between a universal 
atonement and a limited election. The Baptist de- 
nomination, entangled in the same endless meshes of 
decrees, foreordinations, and elections, ignores any sup- 
position of relationship between children and the 
Church, placing them on the same footing with the 
children of heathenism, till she is morally certain 
they can think and act for themselves; a position 
plainly at war with the instincts of humanity and the 
genius of Christianity.* Nor among those Churches 



* "How, then, is a child to be religiously educated ? Religion 
is, first of all, a thing to be lived, and not till afterwards a matter 
to be instructed in. Religion must first approach a child in the 
form of life, and afterwards in the form of instruction. . . . 
We can not begin too early with prayer. When the child can 
not pray himself, let his mother pray with and for him. . . . 
The way of education is by practice to understanding, and not 
by understanding to practice." (The Moral Truths of Chris- 
tianity, 147 ff., Luthardt.) 



CHILDREN UNDER ADAM. 53 

professedly Arminian is there either clearness or con- 
sistency of belief. Reasoning from the premise of 
native depravity in child nature without native de- 
merit and to the necessity for, and application of, the 
atonement to children with its consequent effects, the 
theologians of this school are consistent neither with 
themselves nor with the system they attempt to ex- 
pound. 

"We must confess/' says an eminent Armin- 
ian theologian in a recent work, " that the usual 
Arminian treatment of this subject is not very satis- 
factory. It often hesitates, vacillates. There is a 
native guilt, but not guilt as of actual sin. There is 
a native demerit and damnableness, and there is not — 
especially not such as might, consistently with the 
divine justice, be visited with judicial wrath. The in- 
decision is from an attempt to hold Calvinism and 
Arminianism together beyond the point of real diver- 
gence, or from a failure to give scientific completeness 
to the latter." 

There results, therefore, confusion and uncertainty, 
and the strongest argument usually put forth in 
affirmation of the salvation of one-half of the human 
race who die in infancy is, that if infants are not 
capable of a voluntary acceptance of the benefits of 
the atonement, neither are they capable of rejecting 
them. Such an argument, it will be seen, can be pro- 
ductive of no conclusion, since both members offset 
each other and are therefore mutually destructive. 
The ground thought is not, whether children can 
accept or reject the "free gift," but whether there is 
any gift for them to accept or reject, and when this 



54 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

gift becomes a real thing to them, and what are its 
effects upon the child-nature. In order to reach 
satisfactory ground for Christian belief in the salva- 
tion of children dying in infancy, some fundamental 
principle as true in its application to adults as to 
them, and grounded in the Word of God, must be first 
obtained. From such a principle or primal truth, if it 
is the true one, the position which children should 
hold in the Christian scheme of redemption, and the 
relation they should bear to the Church, will be 
naturally developed. 

Such a principle is this, that the relation which 
children sustain to the Church must be determined by 
the relation which they sustain to Christ, and Christ 
sustains to them. This, we think, is the correct princi- 
ple, for Christ is the head of the Church ; and this, 
whether we speak of a visible or invisible body ; since 
the visible head of any Christian society can consider 
himself, no matter how high his pretensions may 
carry him, as only the vicegerent of Christ on earth. 
The relationship of children to the Church universal 
can not depend upon any recognition given them in 
theological systems, nor upon decrees of Councils, de- 
cisions of State Churches, or of particular denomina- 
tions. The principle of their relation must be back 
of all these, as any other matter of Christian belief 
and practice. 

The Church of Christ, or the visible kingdom 
of God on earth, is not limited to any one particu- 
lar manifestation or outward expression of that king- 
dom, but embraces all who stand in vital relation- 
ship to Christ and maintain the preaching of the 



CHILDREN UNDER ADAM. 55 

word and proper administration of the sacraments.* 
In the liberty wherewith Christ has made ns free, 
any society may legislate within limits on the compo- 
sition of its own membership, being answerable there- 
for to Almighty God and the judgment of Christendom, 
but it can not make laws for the universal Church. 
It may usurp authority over other Churches, and arro- 
gate to itself certain exclusive powers, and in defense 
plead ancient custom ; but it is only one of the many 
tribes of Israel, and as to the plea of antiquity, it 
would be well to remember the words of Cyprian, that 



* " The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful 
men, in which the pure Word of God. is preached, and the 
sacraments duly administered, according to Christ's ordinance, 
in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same." 
(XIII Art. of Relig., Methodist Episcopal Church.) " The vis- 
ible Church, which is also catholic or universal under the 
gospel — not confined to one nation as before, under the law — 
consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true 
religion, together with their children ; and is the kingdom of the 
Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which 
there is no ordinary possibility of salvation." (Westminster 
Confession, xxv, 2. See also the Belgic Confession, 27, 29. 
Helvet. Conf. ; Scot. Conf., Art. XVI ; the Articles of Schmal- 
cald, Art. XII ; the Saxon Conf., drawn up by Melanchthon, 
A. D. 1551.) It must not be overlooked that in the Articles of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church and in those of the Anglican 
Church the word " faithful " does not bear the same meaning 
as its Latin form in the formularies of the Roman Church. 
There it may — and is so interpreted — mean any one who may 
make outward profession of belief in the teachings of the 
Church. Among Protestants it can only mean, simply those 
who are spiritually united with Christ. For early patristic def- 
initions of the Church, see Clemens Rornanus, Epis. 1, 59 ; Ig- 
natius, Ep. ad ; Trail., VIII; Ad Smyrn., Ill; Irenseus Hser., 
Ill, 6 ; see also Tertullian, De Prescript Haer., XX, at the close 
of the chapter, etc. 



56 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

custom without truth is the antiquity of error — "nam 
eonsuetudo sine veritate vestutas erroris est." 

The principle we have laid clown relative to the 
Church membership of children is as applicable to 
adults as to them; that is to say, the condition of adult 
membership in the Church depends upon the relation 
which the individual bears to Christ. Some writers 
maintain that it depends upon a confession of faith. 
But to say that membership in the Church is primarily 
conditioned upon a profession of faith in Christ, unless 
the profession is in fact but an outward expression of 
inward spiritual union with Christ, is simply to say 
that the condition of Church membership is the repe- 
tition of a form of words. If the confession is an af- 
firmation of real faith, then it is evident that union 
with Christ is the true and primary condition. Other 
writers assert that this relation of adult believers to 
the Church depends upon baptism. But this view is 
also manifestly erroneous, since the believer is not 
baptized because he believes — for that sacrament is not 
a sign nor a seal of faith — but because he is justified 
and has received regenerating grace, of which baptism 
is the seal. Hence it follows, if a saving relationship 
to Christ in adults is the condition of holy baptism, 
and so of admission into the universal Church, then it 
is identical with the principle laid down relative to 
children. What applies to the one applies equally to 
the other. It is grounded in the Word of God, and 
appeals confidently to the Christian consciousness. 

Now that this principle, or law, will be objected 
to by those who teach that relation to the Church 
rests upon what, in their phraseology, is termed " be- 



CHILDREN UNDER ADAM. 57 

lievers' baptism," which is as intelligible as if one 
should speak of " believers' salvation," is not to be 
wondered at, since it removes at a single stroke every 
prop which formerly buttressed their position. Child- 
membership has been attacked on the ground that it 
was supported only by custom derived from the 
pre-Reformation Church, the decrees of this or that 
Council or Synod, and a weak array of inferential ar- 
guments from Scripture. But this principle discards 
all these. It goes down through all arbitrary opin- 
ions and narrow or dubious interpretations of Scrip- 
ture, and similar conceptions of apostolic methods in 
the Church during its formative period, and reaches 
a fundamental reason for the admission of children 
into the Church, which reason is not based upon de- 
batable opinions of Ante-Nicene fathers, nor upon the 
silence of Scripture, but upon the redemptive work of 
our Lord Jesus Christ. Now that a saving relation- 
ship to Christ contains in itself a demand for recog- 
nition which the Church has no authority to reject, 
but is bound to accept, and that children sustain such 
a relation to the world's Redeemer, is the subject 
upon which we now enter. 

What, then, is the moral status of children in the 
Christian system? Omitting the Pelagian and similar 
theories — such as that infants are born in a perfectly 
holy state, or that they are born with a negative 
character, indifferent to either good or evil — rejecting 
such views as being too clearly refuted by the express 
word of inspiration and the moral history of the 
race, three principal theories are presented for inves- 



58 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

1. That all, children are born sinful, guilty, and 
totally depraved; that some, dying in infancy, are 
saved through the atonement of Christ, they having 
been elected to eternal life, according to the sovereign 
will and good pleasure of God. 

2. That all children are born in a guilty and 
totally depraved state, but, through the atoning merits 
of Christ, all dying in infancy are saved. 

3. That all children are by nature born in a state 
of depravity, but, through the atonement, are in that 
moral state which, in the adult believer, corresponds 
to justification, and so, dying in infancy, are infallibly 
saved. 

These theories are opposed to each other by essen- 
tial differences, although in some points they all agree. 
The first and second agree in the sinfulness and guilt- 
iness and depravity (in which last the third also 
agrees, with modifications) of the child-nature. They 
disagree on the salvation of all dying in infancy. 
The third theory — for so we will term it — differs from 
both on the sinfulness and guilt of child-nature. 
With the second it denies that only some, dying in 
infancy, are saved, and asserts, for the want of a better 
term, the justification of all children coming into the 
world. The first theory is Calvinistic, and is sus- 
tained by the confessional standards and theological 
writings of Calvinistic Churches, though a commendable 
effort has been made to eliminate such teachings from 
the doctrinal expositions of the Presbyterian Church. 
Since it is in accord with the second theory on the 
sinfulness of child-nature, these, two theories may be 
considered together. For our purpose it is not neces- 



CHILDREN UNDER ADAM. 59 

sary that they should be studied at all ; for in full 
view of the fact that an atonement has been made, the 
result is the same, whether infants are guilty or not. 
If guilty, the atonement of Christ obliterates the 
guilt ; if not guilty, through the same atonement they 
are brought out of the alienation to the holiness of 
God in which they had been through the Adamic sin, 
and are recognized, declared, and accepted as the pur- 
chase of the precious blood. But it is important that 
the salvation of children should be at least briefly set 
forth, and this requires some treatment of the question 
of sinfulness and guilt. 

In agreement with, and as a basis for the first 
theory, the Westminster Confession teaches : " Elect 
infants dying in infancy are regenerated and saved by 
Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when and where 
and how he pleaseth." The dogma of infant damna- 
tion is plainly taught; for if only elect infants are saved 
when dying, those not elected are surely lost. That 
this was the doctrine taught by those who framed the 
Confession, and the doctrine they intended to be un- 
derstood as teaching, is a matter of irrefutable history* 

1. But who are elect infants f The importance 
of this question lies in the obvious fact that if there 
is an election of infants, there is a difference among 
infants (children), as a class, of moral character, and 

* " The Westminster Doctrine of the Salvation of Infants," 
by Dr. Charles A. Briggs, in Presbyterian Review, April, 1887. 
The efforts to expunge or change the doctrine referred to by 
Calvinistic theologians of the present day are very humane; 
but such efforts are in direct antagonism to the accepted the- 
ology of the Church. The change is a revolution, and should 
be so recognized. 



60 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

therefore a corresponding difference in the relation 
which they sustain to Christ and he sustains to them. 
But vital as this question is, no satisfactory answer can 
be given to it. It can not be affirmed that children 
of believers are elect ; for on true Calvinistic princi- 
ples no one can be proved to be efficiently called and 
elected. The eighteenth chapter of the Westminster 
Confession does unmistakably teach that " such as 
truly believe in the Lord Jesus and love him in sin- 
cerity, endeavoring to walk in all good conscience 
before him, may in this life be certainly assured that 
they are in the state of grace, and may rejoice in the 
hope of the glory of God, which hope shall never 
make them ashamed," and the second section gives 
the ground for this assurance. But in section third 
of the same chapter is this : " This infallible assurance 
doth not so belong to the essence of faith but that a 
true believer may wait long and conflict with many diffi- 
culties before he be partaker of it," and the explana- 
tion of this section is summed up in the American 
" Exposition " of the Confession in the words : " This 
assurance is not the attainment of all believers."* 
From this fact it is evident that no affirmation can 
be made by that portion of Christ's Church that this 
or that child of this or that believer was saved, since 
the true believer is known to God alone. 

2. But let it be granted that an elect parent may 
be known, and that, through the covenant, the child of 
such a parent may be entitled to the sacrament of 

*An Exposition of the Confession of Faith, etc., by the 
Rev. Robert Shaw; revised by the Committee of Publication. 
Philadelphia : Presbyterian Board of Publication. 



CHILDREN UNDER ADAM. 61 

baptism ; does it, because of such parentage, belong to 
the elect? Such a conclusion would ground election 
in parental descent, and not upon the secret council 
oF God; it is the argument of those who say, " We 
have Abraham to our father" (Matt, iii, 9), and is 
logically destructive of Gospel principles. For let it 
be granted, as the Westminster Assembly declared, 
that " the seed and posterity of the faithful, born 
within the Church, have by their birth interest in 
the covenant and right to the seal of it," does it 
follow that this seed is regenerated because of this 
connection, and that therefore the children of the 
unbelievers are unregenerate? This can not be. 
Whatever is the moral nature of believers' children 
as such, that is the nature of all children. " God is 
no respecter of persons," and the grace of God is not 
through flesh and blood ; for " that which is born of the 
flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is 
spirit." (John iii, 6.) Hereditary grace is not only 
unknown to the Word of inspiration, but the very 
supposition of it is antagonistic to the whole body of 
apostolic teaching. They only are the sons of God 
" who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, 
nor of the will of man, but of God." (John i, 13.) Now, 
since it is Divine grace alone that differentiates the 
moral character of the two classes of children, and since 
God is in truth no respecter of persons, and since this 
grace is not hereditary in the children of believers, it 
necessarily follows, unless God has decreed that some 
infants shall be damned, that all children are upon the 
same moral basis, and all bear, an equal — that is, an 
identical — relationship to the world's Redeemer. That 



62 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

God has decreed from all eternity that a certain num- 
ber of infants shall be saved and the remainder lost, 
is too horrible to be thought of, and the day has for- 
ever gone by when a dogma felt to be contrary to 
the common sense of mankind can command either 
the assent of the intellect or the devotion of the 
heart. 

The constant protest and unanswerable argument 
against Calvinistic dogmas of foreordination, uncon- 
ditioned election, and reprobation; an argument 
which rejects the elaborate theories and profound sub- 
tilties of scholastic dialectics , an argument which is 
as universal as the race and as enduring as humanity, — 
is the inborn sense of individual responsibility, the 
ought and the ought not in every human heart. 
What ought to be done, can be done; and what ought 
not to be done, need not be done. And so, in every soul 
there is the inborn consciousness of individual respon- 
sibility, and therefore of individual freedom, either to 
do or not to do, untrammeled by the effects of eternal 
decrees. No less powerful in its authority or divine 
in its origin is that inborn instinct which, whatever 
may be the logical demands from premises of our owd 
making, still persists with unceasing and unconquera- 
ble force against those dogmas, however much sup- 
ported they may be by philosophy or buttressed with 
Scriptural phrases, which condemn any helpless babe 
on the bosom to the pains of an eternal hell. Be- 
tween children there is primarily no moral distinction ; 
what is the nature of one is the nature of all. The 
difference between the children of believers and those 
of unbelievers is external and not internal. It relates 



CHILDREN UNDER ADAM. 63 

wholly to the conditions in which they are placed, 
which conditions bring them under the spiritualizing 
influences of Christian teaching and worship and holy 
example, or deprive them of the same. This differ- 
ence is one of degrees, even among the children of 
believers. In one family there may be the strictest 
regard for everything conducive to the nature and 
rich growth of piety in the hearts of its members ; 
while in another family, even of the same Church, the 
chilling influences of the world, a cold, hesitating 
attitude towards God and the Church, may injure the 
tender bud of religion in the heart of the child, and 
render sickly and precarious the orderly and sponta- 
neous development of those Christian graces which, 
while beautiful at all times in older people, seem an- 
gelic when set in the beauty of childhood. The text 
in 1 Cor. vii, 12, 14, is not opposed by this view. 
From the nature of the case, the Apostle there only 
declares that the children of believers are, through the 
faith of their parents, ceremonially clean and entitled 
to all the privileges of the Church. Were their par- 
ents unbelievers, they as children could have no part 
in the visible Church, whatever may be their relation 
to the universal atonement of Christ, since the exter- 
nal blessings of the covenant are only to those who 
are parties to that covenant, for "the promise is to 
you and to your children " (Acts ii, 39) ; to you as 
believers accepting the promise. The child can not 
make a covenant ; the parents will not ; therefore the 
child, like the parents, is ceremonially unclean. 

3. It can not be maintained that reception of 
baptism by believers* children effects a moral differ- 



64 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

ence between them and the children of unbelievers. 
To affirm that it does, is to assert baptismal regenera- 
tion ; for it makes the moral change inseparable from 
the physical act of baptism. That children are re- 
generated in holy baptism, in the Augustinian sense, 
is nothing to the point. Augustine did not mean by 
regeneration, as is very well known, a moral change, 
but a change of ecclesiastical relation only; and held 
that children, after baptism, must experience that 
moral change which they had not previously expe- 
rienced. (Contra Julian, Bk. V, c; 16 ; Bk. VI, c 6 ; 
contra Pelag. et al. ; De Peccat. Orig. Bk. II, c. 40.) 
To affirm baptismal regeneration in a spiritual sense 
is, notwithstanding the teaching of some early fathers 
of the Ante-Nicene period, directly contrary to the in- 
spired Word ; for " he is not a Jew, which is one out- 
wardly: neither is that circumcision, which is outward 
in the flesh : but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly ; 
and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and 
not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of 
God." (Rom. ii, 28, 29.) And although it has been 
stoutly maintained by the Tractarian party in the 
Church of England,* and their imitators in the Prot- 
estant Episcopal Church in the United States, it has 
never had any influence upon the doctrine of regen- 
eration as held by evangelical Churches, and is no 



*Many explicit statements against baptismal regeneration 
may be gathered from the works of the most eminent divines 
of the Church of England ; such as Latimer, Cranmer, Ridley, 
and the great Hooker, the Bishops Jewell, Hall, Ussher, Dave- 
nant, Reynolds, Leighton, Hopkins, Burnet, Tillotson, Bev- 
eredge, and many others. 



CHILDREN UNDER ADAM. 65 

longer considered a debatable question in Protestant 
theology. 

The conclusion, then, is that the difference between 
children of believers and those of unbelievers is not 
internal, but external; not moral, but accidental; and, 
as far as their outward condition is concerned, may 
be changed at any time by the acceptance of the 
parent of the covenant of life as offered in Christ Jesus. 

II. What proof is there that elect infants, dying i)i 
infancy, are regenerated? This doctrine is not pecu- 
liar to Calviuistic Churches, but is found in the the- 
ology of Arminian Churches also, and is therefore of 
much interest. From the Calviuistic side it is 
grounded in the doctrine of election and reprobation. 
The Arminian assumes it to be so without any Scrip- 
tural proof, direct or inferential. These two views 
may be included under one head; but, the ground for 
both being different, our remarks are now confined to 
the statement of the Westminster Confession. Accord- 
ing to Calvinism, infants are corrupt and guilty in 
the sight of God, and therefore can not, in such a con- 
dition, enter the state of eternal blessedness. But 
elect infants must enter there if they die, else they 
would not be elect; consequently, they must be 
changed in their moral nature — that is, regenerated as 
they pass out through the portals of death. One 
great and important fact should be carefully observed 
in this doctrinal statement of the Westminster Assem- 
bly — a fact which Arminianism also strongly teaches — 
that is, infant regeneration. How much may be in- 
cluded in the term regeneration, as applied to infants, 
it is not necessary now to examine ; it is more to the 



66 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

purpose to notice when this regeneration takes place. 
According to the Confession, it is in the hour of death, 
and in this some Arminian writers agree. But is it 
not a little remarkable how such accurate knowledge 
of the time when an infant is regenerated can be ob- 
tained in the absence of a single passage of Scripture 
from which even a doubtful conclusion may be drawn? 
If there is a passage of Holy Writ in favor of this 
notion, why is it not produced? There is none. Death 
is nowhere regarded in Holy Scripture as a condition 
of salvation, nor is there any ground, Scriptural or 
rational, for making a difference between the moral 
character of the children of believers, dying in infancy, 
and those not dying in infancy. The dying infant has 
no more capacity for regenerating grace, no deeper in- 
sight into the mysteries of redemption, no profounder 
consciousness of inbred sin and need of an Almighty 
Deliverer than a living infant. The saving power of 
Christ's atonement is as morally necessary to the living 
child as to the dead child; for God can not look with 
complacency upon a sinful soul, whether it is in the 
body or out of the body. To confine the saving influ- 
ence of the Holy Spirit, in the case of infants, to the 
time of death, is an avoidance of the obvious truth that 
all infants, whether in a dying state or not, are, through 
the Atonement, in that state of salvation, however 
named, which corresponds to acceptance in the adult 
believer. The moral character of the soul does not 
depend upon terms; for, although the Holy Spirit, we 
may grant, has appropriated certain terms expressing 
certain moral states, yet all those terms are taken 
from the vocabularies of men, and can not be consid- 



CHILDREN UNDER ADAM. 67 

ered as being the exact, complete, precise, and only 
possible verbal mediums of Divine thought, of every 
spiritual idea in the mind of God. Some languages 
are more religious than others — that is, they have 
greater capacity for conveying spiritual ideas — but 
the most perfect language must fall far short of being 
a perfect medium of Divine revelation, and possibly no 
term can fully express the whole of the thought it is 
used to express. Justification may be one of such 
terms, regeneration another; for while the latter may 
express the idea of a new birth as a complete fact, 
yet it may embrace the whole process of becoming, 
from the first moment of quivering life up to the time 
of separate existence, when, as a completed fact, the 
living thing stands out distinct from all else.* We 
are not now attempting a definition of regeneration, 
nor a widening nor a changing of terms which have a 
distinct, fixed, historical meaning, but only to suggest 
a fact independent of technical phrases. 

To return. Death is simply a physical act, a ces- 
sation of all vital functions, and, as such, can have no 
influence upon the character of the departing spirit. 
But if it is said that death affords an opportunity for 
the fullest efficiency of the Holy Ghost, in the trans- 
forming or renewal of the child-nature — a statement 
which need not be controverted — still it must be seen 



* Mr. Wesley's sermon on the " Scripture Way of Salva- 
tion:" "So that the salvation which is here spoken of might 
be intended to be the entire work of God, from the first dawn- 
ing of grace in the soul till it is consummated in glory. If we 
take this in its utmost extent, it will include all that is wrought 
in the soul by what is frequently termed natural conscience, but 
more properly, preventing grace," etc. 



68 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

that the life of the child was a continuous opportunity 
for at least a limited display of saving grace, or else 
that the life was a hindrance to, a limiting force 
against, the possible activity of the Spirit. Moreover, 
if the child was not in a saved state until the moment 
of death, its moral character previous to that crisis — 
that is, from the cradle to the grave — was obnoxious 
to Almighty God, the infinitely benevolent Father. 
How such a view can be in harmony with the re- 
demptive work of Christ, of whom it was prophesied, 
"He shall feed his flock like a shepherd; he shall 
gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his 
bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with 
young •" or how it can agree in letter or in spirit with 
the express teachings of Him who came to fulfill that 
prophecy, saying, "Suffer little children to come unto 
me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of 
heaven ;" who took them up in his arms, " put his 
hands upon them, and blessed them ;" who identified 
himself with them in saying, " Whosoever receiveth 
one of these little ones in my name, receiveth me," — 
how such a doctrine can harmonize with such teach- 
ings, may be safely left for its solution to the leisure 
of a philosophic hour, or more safely still to the en- 
lightening influence of the Spirit of God upon the 
Christian consciousness. 

III. The basis for the dogma of hereditary guilt 
is laid in the assumption that, in a realistic sense, 
Adam was the head of the human race, and that* there- 
fore his acts were the acts of the race, and his sin the 
sin of all his posterity. This doctrine was first intro- 
duced into Christian theology by the immortal Augus- 



CHILDREN UNDER ADAM. 69 

tine, the Bishop of Hippo, in the fifth century. In 
his great work, " The City of God," he puts forth his 
views in this manner: " God, the author of nature, 
but not of sin, created man upright; but he, having 
through his own will become depraved and con- 
demned, propagated depraved and condemned off- 
spring. For we were all in that one man, since we 
ivere all that one man — omnes enim fuimus in illo, 
quando fuimus ille unus — w T ho lapsed into sin through 
that woman who was made from him previous to 
transgression. ' All men at that time sinned in 
Adam, since in his nature all men were as yet that 
one man/ ' Adam was the one in whom all sinned.' "* 
Concerning infants he taught: "The infant who is 
lost is punished because he belongs to the mass of per- 
dition, and as a child of Adam is justly condemned on 
the grouud of the ancient obligation." f 

In his Epistle to Jerome he asks: "How can so 
many thousands of souls, which leave the bodies of 
unbaptized infants be with any equity condemned, if 
they were newly created and introduced into these 
bodies, for no previous sin of their own, but by the 
mere will of Him who created them to animate these 



* See the various treatises ; De Peccat. Meretis III, vii, 14 ; 
De Concept, et Grat. x; De Peccat. Orig., 36, 38; De Nupt., et 
Concept., II, c. 5. See Noack, Dogrnengescbichte s. 104. 
Meier, Dogmen. 123; Baumgarten Crusius Lehrbuck der Chr 
Dogmen, Vol. I, 320; F. C. Baur, Dogmengeschichte, 178, sec. 
46; Buperti Lehr-Buck Dogmen, 191-198; Beck, Ckristliche 
Dogmen, 224; Augusti, Dogmen, 331; Hagenback, Hist. Doct , 
3 vols., copious references. See also Tke Ckristian Doctrine of 
Sin, Julius Miiller. He treats tke doctrine of Original Sin witb 
profound penetration. 

tDe Concept, et Grat., c. 9. Opera, Vol. VII, 475. 



70 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

bodies, and foreknew that each of them, for no fault 
of his own, would die unbaptized ?" That some in- 
fants were saved and the remainder lost, was the 
logical consequence which Augustine was compelled 
to accept from the first premises of his system. All 
being guilty, God could without injustice select from 
the whole guilty mass those whom he chose ; and those 
thus chosen are the elect, those not chosen the repro- 
bate. Calvin developed these views of Augustine, 
and in the Reformation period they passed over into 
English theology, and, through the Westminster Con- 
fession, may have been conveyed to our day. In the 
famous Institutes, Calvin taught, concerning the moral 
condition of infants, that "they bring their condem- 
nation with them from their mother's womb, being 
liable to punishment, not for the sin of another, but 
for their own. For although they have not as yet 
produced the fruits of their iniquity, yet they have 
the seed inclosed in themselves ; nay, their whole 
nature is, as it were, a seed of sin ; therefore they 
can not but be odious and abominable to God. 
Whence it follows that it is properly considered sin 
before God, because there could not be liability to 
punishment without sin." The Roman Catholic 
Church in the Council of Trent formally adopted the 
same doctrine of infant guilt : " Whosoever shall 
affirm that new-born infants, even though springing 
from baptized parents, ought not to be baptized ; or 
shall say that though they are baptized for the re- 
mission of sins, yet they derive not from Adam that 
original guilt (priginalis peccati), which must be 
expiated in the laver of regeneration in order to ob- 



CHILDREN UNDER ADAM. 71 

tain eternal life, ... let him be anathema. 
Whosoever shall deny that the guilt of original sin is 
remitted (rectum originalis peccati remitti negat) by 
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ bestowed in bap- 
tism, ... let him be anathema." The same 
doctrine was adopted by all the great Confessions set 
forth in that stormy period of reconstruction ; such as 
the Confession of Belgium, of Helvetia, of Bohemia, 
the French Confession, the Thirty-nine Articles of the 
Church of England, and even by the Arminians in 
Holland. Arminius, the great opposer of the entire 
Augustinian, and, as founded thereon, Calvinistic 
scheme of redemption asserted : " Infants have rejected 
the grace of the gospel in their parents' forefathers, by 
which act they deserved to be deserted by God. For 
I would like to have proof adduced how all posterity 
could sin in Adam against law, and yet infants, to 
whom the gospel is offered in their parents and re- 
jected, have not sinned against the grace of the gos- 
pel." The various Calvinistic bodies in this country 
practically reach identical conclusions by different 
routes, each explaining the conclusion according to its 
method of approach. 

Augustine's theory was based upon a false exegesis, 
and his followers have buttressed it with a false 
philosophy. The Scripture upon which the great theo- 
logian relied was, Rom. v, 12: i<p' qj navies rjfiapzov — 
from the fact, or, because that all have sinned. In the 
Latin Version which Augustine used, the text is 
translated: " In quo omnes peccaverunt" — In whom 
all have sinned — and it was supposed that the i<p' <jj — 
in giiOy in whom — could refer to no one but Adam. 



72 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

This was the stronghold of Augustinianism, though 
other passages were employ ed, and upon this the 
theory that the race really sinned in Adam was 
established. The philosophy with which Augustine 
supported his interpretation, whether consciously or 
not, and which the Schoolmen employed in the de- 
velopment of the same doctrine was the Aristotelian 
doctrine of realism. That form of it which affirms 
universals to be prior to particulars, applied to 
anthropology in theology, means that Adam was the 
universal man, the genus homo, and that all indi- 
viduals since derived from him were in him. This 
being true, when Adam sinned, they sinned, and when 
he was condemned, they were condemned; and thus 
each individual is born under condemnation, which 
is not renewed except by the waters of baptism.* 

It need hardly be stated that, when Augustine 
announced the doctrines of election and reprobation 
and of original guilt, they were regarded as novel- 
ties. For four hundred years the Church had been 
exercising her authority as the teacher of the nations 
without even suspecting that her understanding of 
the sacred Scriptures concerning sin and redemption 
was fundamentally wrong. The theologians of the 
East, many of them bishops over the Churches 
founded by the apostles, are found holding views 
irreconcilable with those of Augustine. Among 
these early writers, maintaining, it is true, various 
notions among themselves, but none of them advo- 



*See Hagcnbach, Hist, of Doct., Yol. I, p. 425, Edinburgh 
Ed., for the various causes which probably influenced Augus- 
tine in the formation of his theory. 



CHILDREN UNDER ADAM. 73 

eating what was afterwards known as Augustinianism, 
are Lactantius, and Clement of Alexandria, Origen, 
Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Jerusalem, Cyril of 
Alexandria, Athanasius, Ephraem Syrus, Chrysostom, 
Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Theodoret. Cyril of 
Jerusalem, says, respecting original sin : " When we 
come into the world we are sinless, but now we sin 
from choice •" " We did not sin before our souls came 
into the world, but coming into it free from evil, we 
transgress by the choice of our mind/'' The sentence 
of death threatened against Adam extended to him 
and all his posterity, even unto those who had not 
sinned as Adam did when he disobeyed God by eat- 
ing the forbidden fruit. Gregory Nyssa recognized 
the fact of universal sinfulness, but in respect to in- 
fants, denied that the tendency to sin was guilt. The 
eloquent Chrysostom also denied the guilt of original 
tendency to evil, and asserted that " it is not unbe- 
fitting that from that man who sinned, and thereby 
became mortal, there should be generated those who 
should also sin, and thereby become mortal ; but that 
by that single act of disobedience another being is 
made a sinner; what reason is there in this? No one 
owes anything to father until he becomes a sinner for 
himself. What, then, is the meaning of the word 
huapTolot in the phrase i were made ' sinners ? It 
seems to me to denote liability to suffering and death." * 
In the Latin Church Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose, 
and Hilary stand out, the two last in the age im- 
mediately preceding Augustine, as representative of 



Shedd, Hist. Christ. Doct, Vol. I, 27-50. 



74 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

the early theology of the West. In his treatise Be 
Anima, Tertullian speaks of original sin in terms 
similar to the Greek theologians, and distinctly teaches 
that in the sonl of man some good still lingers, 
though " weighted down by the evil." In his cele- 
brated tract on Baptism he pleads for a delay in the 
baptism of infants, because being comparatively in- 
nocent, they have no need to Hasten reception of that 
sacrament which signifies the remission of sins. 
" Why does the innocent period of life hasten to the 
remission of sins?" "Cyprian denied the guilt of 
original sin, though, like Tertullian, he affirmed the 
necessity of baptism the grace of which is needed to 
remit the sin derived from the parent." In his 
Epistle to Fidus, on the baptism of infants, he says: 
"But if anything could hinder men from obtaining 
grace, their more heinous sins might rather hinder 
those who are mature and grown up and older. But 
again, if even to the greatest sinners, and to those 
who had sinned much against God, when they subse- 
quently believed, remission of sins is granted — and 
nobody is hindered from baptism and from grace — 
how much rather ought we to shrink from hindering 
an infant, who being lately born, has not sinned 
except in that, being born after the flesh according 
to Adam, he has contracted the contagion of the an- 
cient death at its earliest birth, who approaches the 
more easily on this very account to the reception of 
the forgiveness of sins, that to him are remitted — not 
his own sins, but the sins of another." That this 
was the general belief of the African Church at the 
time, is seen in the fact that this epistle is written in 



CHILDREN UNDER ADAM. 75 

the name of sixty-six colleagues of Cyprian in the 
government of the Church, who were present in coun- 
cil when this decision was made. Not until a century 
later in the writings of Ambrose and Hilary do we 
find in the Latin Church any well-marked tendency 
toward the anthropology which Augustine finally de- 
veloped. With respect to his doctrines of election 
and reprobation, upon which the doctrine of infant 
damnation was grounded, and upon which doctrines 
Calvin also, as he was bound, founded the same 
tenet, it is well known that they were also regarded 
as entire novelties. When Augustine sent forth his 
treatise on " Correction and Grace," in which he un- 
folded his views on Predestination, many Christians 
living in Marseilles warmly opposed such views, and 
remonstrated Avith him, through Prosper of Aquitane 
and Hilary of Aries, on the ground of their un- 
scriptural character and being contrary to the con- 
science of the Church. In a letter addressed to 
Augustine, these Christians say "We heartily ap- 
prove of your general confutation of Pelagius and his 
followers. But why do you superfluously mingle with 
it a system of novel peculiarities, which we can not 
receive ? To say nothing of what we at least deem 
the utter inconsistency of the system with Scripture, 
it is in truth, quite new to us; we never even so 
much as heard of it before ; we find it unsanctioned 
by any one of the preaching fathers, and we perceive 
it to be contrary to the sense of the whole Catholic 
Church.* 



*Fnber, Primitive Doctrine of Election. (Augustine's 
Works, Vol. VII.) 



76 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

For four hundred years, then, the Church had been 
teaching an anthropology at variance in many points 
with Augustine's doctrines, and during this long 
period was wholly ignorant of this doctrine of un- 
conditioned election and reprobation. But one Coun- 
cil after another, having condemned Pelagianism, ap- 
proved Augustinianism ; the Schoolmen supported it 
with the Aristotelian philosophy, and carried it on to 
the age of the Reformation, when it embedded itself 
in the various Reformed Confessions and was wrought 
out into scientific form by the powerful intellect of 
Calvin. But the human mind could not rest satisfied 
with such a dogma, and reaction soon set in, and 
various other methods of solving the question of sin 
and guilt were resorted to by the new schools which 
sprang up as results of the unappeasable conviction 
that the anthropology of Augustine, and his doctrines of 
predestination and grace, whether as set forth by that 
father or by Calvin, were radically wrong and dis- 
honoring to God's character in the thought of men 
who could not reconcile the scheme with any prin- 
ciple of honor or justice. 

Calvinism in this country is divided into several 
schools, each regarding the other as offering no satis- 
factory solution of the awful fact of the original sin- 
fulness and guilt of human nature being compatible 
with the justice and goodness of God. The Old 
School Presbyterians taught that men are sinful at 
the very beginning of their existence, and obnoxious 
to the wrath of God because the sin of Adam is im- 
puted to them. Thus Dr. Hodge, in his Commentary 
on Romans, where he sets forth the imputation theory 



CHILDREN UNDER ADAM. 77 

in the clearest and straightest manner, says: "The 
great fact in the apostle's mind was, that God re- 
gards and treats all men from the first moment of their 
existence as out of fellowship with himself, as having 
forfeited his favor. . . . The covenant being 
formed with Adam, not only for himself, but also for 
his posterity — in other words, Adam having been 
placed on trial — his act was, in virtue of this relation, 
regarded as our act." When the correctness of the 
interpretation is questioned, the justice is placed in 
the fact that God has so ordered it in the constitution 
which he has established. According to this, a man 
may be justly condemned forever, whether he was 
sinful or not; and to say that God imputes sin where 
there is no sin is absurd, and reflects greatly on the 
Divine justice and holiness. God sees things as they 
are. If one is sinful, God sees him as sinful. If he 
is not sinful, God is just and loving, and will not 
regard him nor treat him as being what he is not. 
And how, then, can God regard that act of Adam as 
our individual act when it was not our act ? The 
whole theory is a baseless assumption. It violates 
every sense of justice, and can not be true. There 
are other theories adopted by eminent divines in the 
various Calvinistic schools of thought; but we think 
the two indicated to be sufficient for ascertaining the 
general drift of a system of belief which can not be 
defended nor preached, and which is fast passing away 
from the thought and interest of the theological world. 
In opposition to the views which have thus been 
briefly outlined, whether regarded as Augustiniauism 
or Calvinism, whether taught by Old School or New 



78 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

School, is Wesleyan-Arminianism, which stands for 
the true freedom of the Avill, the universality of the 
atonement, the salvation of all children, and affirms 
Divine election to be based upon conduct. 

Adam was the head of the race in the sense that 
the father is the head of the family. In no real 
sense were we in Adam or acted with him. We were 
in him in the same sense and in no other sense than 
the future child is in the present possible father, or a 
future generation is in the present generation, or as 
all lions now existing may be said to have been in 
the first lion. When the first lion lived, all lions 
lived ; because, if no prohibitory or destroying law 
or power intervenes, they will, in accordance with the 
design for which the first lion was created, live and 
act according to the laws of that lion-nature which 
they have derived from their progenitor. It may 
also be said that when the first lion died, all lions died, 
though as yet they had no existence, because the same 
nature which succumbed in the first lion to the laws 
of decay, is the nature of every lion descended from 
that lion, and it is impossible to escape from that 
decay unless the lion could escape from the lion- 
nature which it has received. 

In no other way was the human race in Adam. 
There was no real and personal existence of the indi- 
vidual in him, and therefore there could have been 
no real, personal acting of the individual, nor partic- 
ipation of the same in the sin of Adam. His sin 
was personal. For it he was personally responsible. 
He was guilty, and neither the sin, nor the guilt of it 
as such, could be imputed to any one else. Neverthe- 



CHILDREN UNDER ADAM. 79 

less, the consequences of it might spread out beyond 
him, providing that the conditions for the actual effect 
of the consequences are permitted to exist ; that is to 
say, the effect of Adam's sin will come upon Adam's 
posterity, should he have posterity. In this, so far, 
there is no mystery. If it be said that there is a mys- 
tery in the fact that the benevolent God should allow 
the consequences to come upon innocent posterity, we 
confess that in the light of revelation we can see noth- 
ing mysterious or bewildering in it. How could it be 
otherwise if posterity of Adam is to exist? God — 
let us speak reverently — can do one of two things ; 
either prevent the possibility of a posterity, or let the 
posterity come, and provide a Redeemer who shall de- 
liver that posterity from all consequences of Adam's 
sin. He has chosen, in his infinite wisdom, to permit 
man to be; and therefore, in his infinite justice and 
love, he has chosen to redeem him. 

Adam, of his own free will, fell from the holiness 
of whatever kind it was in which God had created 
him. The result of this fall was a withdrawal from 
him of that original holiness. He was then without 
holiness; he was unholy, he was depraved. This state 
of deprivation is the negative side of the result of his 
fall. But deprived of the principle of holiness which 
had formerly held dominion over him, the merely 
animal or carnal disposition becomes the ruling prin- 
ciple or governing element in the soul, and the depri- 
vation becomes depravation. The "Will is held in 
bondage to the governing disposition, and instead of 
delight in the will of God, it has its delight in the 
flesh. In such a condition, abstracted from all coun- 



80 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

terading influences of the Holy Spirit through the 
Atonement, there is no possible turning back to true 
holiness. The soul is darkened by the withdrawal 
of the light — its holiness which it lost — and is sunk 
into the anti-spiritual state of animalism and car- 
nality; is sold under sin, and is therefore, from the 
state of its nature, necessarily at enmity with the 
spiritual law of God; is opposed to his holiness, as 
darkness is to light, and can not please God. The 
good has departed or become a negation. Evil takes 
its place ; and, since evil can not change its own 
nature and become good, the human nature in which 
this evil is and rules, and of which it has become an 
element, can not of itself return to holiness and God. 
Hence, the article of the Church: "The condition 
of man after the fall of Adam is such that he can 
not turn and prepare himself by his own natural 
strength and works to faith and calling upon God ; 
wherefore we have no power to do good works pleas- 
ant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God 
through Christ preventing us, and working with us 
when we have that good will." 

By this it must not be understood that the Will 
is completely destroyed ; for an unfree Will is no Will, 
alternativeness being an essential quality or attribute 
in any true concept of the Will. Nor that the spirit 
of man is totally depraved in the sense that the idea 
of, and certain involuntary impulses towards, the 
good, are totally eradicated from the soil of human 
nature by the unrestrained riot of evil forces; for 
such an essentially diabolical nature as it would then 
be, would be devoid of the possibility of salvation; 



CHILDREN UNDER ADAM. 81 

that is to say, capacity would be lacking; and a 
granite mountain, or a beast, or the Satan whom we 
conceive to be the impersonation of the evil of 
the universe, could as easily become the subject 
of redemption as such a totally depraved nature. 
Redemption is possible only when there is respon- 
siveness to the means of redemption. Where there 
is no ability to respond to, no capacity for appro- 
priating, no receptivity to holy impressions and influ- 
ences, there is no moral nature, which is the only 
sphere for the activities of redeeming grace. Though 
man fell, he did not cease to be a moral being. He 
still possessed the power of choice, and, though by 
this power alone he could not restore himself, he still 
possessed the capacity for restoration. As that pro- 
found theologian, Martensen, says : u It was not the 
receptivity, but the productivity, that was wanting to 
fallen men." * Man still possessed free Will, either to 
do or not to do, metaphysically considered ; but the 

* " When the Church in her theology describes inborn sin- 
fulness as totalis carentia virium spiritualium, and includes all 
"spiritual energies" as energies, moral and religious, in the 
deepest sense as energies (Kr'dfte) of the kingdom of God, she by 
no means denies that spiritual gifts of nature may be mani- 
fested by sinful humanity in the sphere of this present life, or 
that human nature possesses a susceptibility for the revelation 
of love and impulses toward the kingdom of God ; she only de- 
clares the total incapacity ( Untiichtigkeit) of sinful humanity to 
bring forth of itself the highest good, its inability to realize the 
true ideal. It is not the receptivity, but the productivity, 
which is wanting to the natural man." (Dogm., sec. 94.) See 
also Nitzsch (Christlich. Lehre, 245), where he says : " There is a 
natural Gottlichkeit des menschlichen Geistes, without Which 
one can not think of the loss of the Divine likeness or of un- 
blessedness in fallen man." 



82 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

ability to carry out its designs was wanting, as the 
Apostle says : " To will is present with me, but how to 
perform that which I will, I find not." 

This fallen, depraved nature is inherited by all 
who are of the offspring of Adam. Adam was created 
in the image (likeness) of God. After the fall, Adam 
" begot a son in his own likeness." This depravity 
must be transmitted to us if we are descended from 
fallen Adam, since it was a quality of his nature as 
fallen when he begot us, and that nature can not be im- 
parted without receiving in the inheritance what con- 
stituted that nature. Modern philosophy, independent 
of theological theories, emphasizes this tremendous 
truth. The doctrine of heredity develops the fact that 
each race has its own typical characteristics which dis- 
tinguish it from other races. The Saxon race, for 
instance, has certain qualities, such as endurance, 
frankness, and energy, which are not found among the 
southern nations of Europe, as the French, the Italian, 
and the Spanish, who, indeed, have more polish, more 
finesse, more shrewdness, intenser imagination, and 
finer poetic insight into the beauties of form and color 
than the Northern peoples, but who lack those sturdy, 
conquering qualities which history has demonstrated 
to be essential requisites of dominion and power. The 
Apostle Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, ascends 
the stream of history in his grand argument, and 
going beyond Grecian and Roman and Jew, back be- 
yond the origin of nations to the Deluge, and still 
farther, beyond the Patriarchs, to the very beginning 
of the race, singles out the first man as the fount from 
whence the deadly corruption has flowed into the 



CHILDREN UNDER ADAM. 83 

nature of humanity. All are now, by the nature they 
inherit from him, what he made himself by his own 
free act. 

The fact, that our nature is now biased toward 
evil, and that continually, is a fact that no sane man 
can deny, no philosophy explain away. We may say 
with Rousseau, that there is no inborn sinfulness, that 
our present sin-consciousness is the product of a false 
culture ; or with Kant, in his doctrine of radical evil, 
assert an inborn tendency in favor of self as against 
law; or with Schelling and Steffi n, affirm a pre-natal 
act of the soul in some other realm of being ; or with 
Schleiermacher and Hegel, hold that man is over- 
powered at the beginning by the blind impulse of na- 
ture — we may accept any of these views, but they are 
all only attempted explanations of the fact of sin, 
which is recognized as such as a reason for attempting 
to explain it. The explanation may vanish, the fact 
remains. 

This depravity is universal. If it were not in- 
grained in human nature it would not be universal; 
and, on the other hand, if it were not universal it 
would be proof positive that it was not original. But 
wherever we look, in whatever age of the world's 
history we begin our investigations, sin is already 
there ; and whatever religion man has adopted in his 
gropings after God, the consciousness of sin lies at the 
bottom. The wisest men and profoundest philoso- 
phers of antiquity, outside the circle of Judaism, were 
as deeply sensible of the universality of depravity as 
the men of the present, and of the utter inability of 
man to recover himself to righteousness and God. 



84 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

Plato says: "The nature of mankind is greatly degen- 
erated and depraved; all manner of disorders infest 
human nature, and men, being impotent, are torn in 
pieces by their lusts as by so many wild beasts;"* and 
in the Tim seas he states that " the cause of the cor- 
ruption is from our parents, so that we never relin- 
quish their evil way, or escape the blemish of their 
evil habit." Epictetus relates his inner experience of 
sin when he says of one sinning, " What he wills, he 
does not do ; what he does not will, that he does."f 
Ovid expresses the same thought: "If I could I 
would be more sane. But some unknown power 
forces me, against my will. Desire draws me one way, 
discretion another. I see and approve the better way, 
but follow the worse." J Seneca ^[ and Cicero § and 
Horace may be cited to the same sad fact. " Our 
corrupt nature," says Seneca, " has drunk in such deep 
draughts of iniquity, which are so far incorporated in 
its very bowels that you can not remove it save by 

* Politicus. See also Critias ; The Laws, IX. 
til, 26: f djuaprdvcjv, b jiev OeXec, ov iroisl, ml b pr) defet iroiel. 
t " Si possem, sanior essem. 
Sed trahit invitam nova vis ; aliudque cupido, 
Mens aliud suadet. Video meliora, proboque : 
Deteriora sequor." — Metain. VII, 18 sqq. 

HEp. 52. See also De Clementia, Lib. I, c. 6: " Peccavimus 
omnes, alii gravia, alii leviora, alii ex destinato, alii forte impulsi, 
aut aliena nequitia ablati ; alii in bonis consiliis parum fortiter 
stetimus et innocentiam inviti ac renitentes perdidimus. Nee 
delinquimus tanturn, sed usque ad extremuin sevi delinquemus." 
\ " Est in animis omnium, fere natura raolle quiddam, de- 
missum, humile, enervatum quodammodo et languidum, senile." 
He then goes on to say : " Were there nothing besides this, 
man would be the greatest of monsters ; but there is present to 
every man reason, which presides over and gives laws to all.' 



CHILDREN UNDER ADAM. 85 

tearing them out;" and in writing to his friend Lu- 
cilius, he asks : " What is it, Lucilius, that, when we 
set ourselves in one way, draws us another ; and, when 
we desire to avoid any course, drives us into it? 
What is it that so wrestles with our mind, allowing 
us never to settle any good resolution once for all?" 
In the same view Cicero says: "The seed of virtues 
are natural to our constitutions, and, were they suf- 
fered to come to maturity, would naturally conduct 
us to a happy life; but now, as soon as we are born 
and received into the world, we are instantly famil- 
iarized with all kinds of depravity and perversity of 
opinions, so that we may be said almost to suck in 
error with our nurse's milk." 

In the Third Satire, Horace notes: "No one is 
born without vice ; he is the best man who is encum- 
bered with the least." And a little farther on, at the 
beginning of the second part of the same Satire, he 
says: "Upon the whole, forasmuch as the vice anger, 
as well as others inherent in foolish [mortals], can not 
be totally eradicated, why does not human reason 
make use of its own weights and measures, and so 
punish faults as the nature of the case requires?" 
How strongly corroborative is all this, and much 
more that might be cited, of St. Paul's testimony as 
to the natural man, in Romans vii, 15: "For that 
which I do, I allow not: for what I w T ould, that 
do I not; ... for the good that I would, I do 
not: but the evil which I would not do, that I 
do. ... I find then a law, that when I would 
do good, evil is present with me." The uniformity of 
this consciousness of inbred sin is such that no stronger 



86 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD, 

argument for the universality of original depravation 
can be produced. From the universal consciousness 
there can be no appeal. Primary truths are not de- 
batable. Men may wrangle over names, and over the 
consequences of their concessions, but the underlying 
fact remains. From the beginning the cry of the 
human is: "The good that I would, I do not; but the 
evil which I would not do, that I do." 

This inbred depravity is termed by theologians 
original sin. This term, sin, however, in its usual sig- 
nification, is inappropriate, although it has obtained 
wide acceptance in popular thought and theological 
language. It is sin; but it is sin in the abstract, not 
in the concrete. Sin in the abstract is the want of 
conformity of the soul to the holiness of God, or, what 
is the same thing, a lack of agreement to the law. 
St. John (First Epistle, iii, 4) defines sin as lawless- 
ness (rj d/mpzla laxh J] dvo/ica), and all the terms used 
in Scripture denoting sin, such as aran, "'X FUJBf, JH, sig- 
nify disobedience to law, wandering from the straight 
path ; and the figurative terms, V&P, Tin, Ttown, ?;id, 
with their equivalents in Greek, napdnrcofia, napaxorj 
Ttap&paacq, all denote a falling away from or a trans- 
gressing of the law. Sin in the concrete is, every act of 
a free being in violation of a known law. Many have 
regarded original depravity as really sin, because of the 
definition above given by the apostle John and other 
texts, as Matthew ix, 4; Mark vii, 21; Komans viii, 7 ; 
v, 12; John viii, 34; but John's definition is based, as 
the context shows, upon the state, the inbred result of 
habit, of those acting, practicing sin. But what is it 
in those who do not act? Dr. A. A. Hodge defines 



CHILDREN UNDER ADAM. 87 

original sin as "the hereditary moral corruption com- 
mon to all men from birth/' and affirms: "1. That 
original sin is purely moral, being the innate prone- 
ness of the will to evil. 2. That having its seat in 
the will, averse to the holy laws of God, it biases the 
understanding, and thus deceives the conscience, leads 
to erroneous moral judgments, to blindness of mind, 
to deficient and perverted sensibility in relation to 
moral objects, to the individual's action by the sen- 
suous nature, and thus to corruption of the whole life. 
3. Thus it presents two aspects: (1) The loss of the 
original righteous habit of will. (2) The presence of 
a positively unrighteous habit." (Outlines of The- 
ology.) 

The Seventh Article of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church defines original sin as "the corruption of the 
nature of every mau that naturally is engendered of 
the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone 
from original righteousness, and is, of his own nature, 
inclined to evil, and that continually." 

Dr. Raymond defines original sin as a "derange- 
ment," an " enfeeblement n of the moral powers ; Dr. 
AVhedon, as a sinwardness, a tendency or bias of the 
will toward evil ; Dr. Knapp, as a tendency to sinful 
passions or unlawful propensities, which are perceived 
in man whenever objects of desire are placed before 
him, and laws are laid upon him. Is this depravation, 
through the deprivation of holiness, sin in any other 
than in a metaphysical sense ? 

The definition of Hodge is admirable; but the 
question behind his definitions which he has not con- 
sidered is, whether this " proneness of the will to evil" 



88 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

is in itself truly sin, and therefore punishable, before 
it has "biased the understanding/' before it has "de- 
ceived the conscience," before it has "blinded the 
mind," or done any of those other things mentioned ; 
whether, as a tendency, it is, in and of itself, sufficient 
to damn to all eternity ? The tendency to sin is not 
sin itself; for the tendency can be separated from the 
sin. If it is sin, it is so in a metaphysical sense, and 
justice requires that its punishment, if such there can 
be in such a case, should also be metaphysical ; and 
that if it is imputed, its imputation should be met- 
aphysical. 

But for this depravity, this sin, the child born of 
Adam is not guilty; that is, liable to punishment. 
The fundamental notion of guilt is, amenability to 
law ; and this involves the notion of violation of law, 
without which there can be no amenability. The in- 
fant has violated no law, and is therefore not guilty; 
that is, he ought not to be, and is not, punished by 
any law. Calvinistic theology affirms the contrary, 
and out of that evolves its doctrine of unconditional 
election, reprobation, and the eternal punishment of 
non-elect infants. For if all are equally guilty of 
Adam's sin, then, first, God is under no obligation to 
save any ; and, secondly, he can select from the whole 
guilty mass — the mass of perdition, as Augustine 
phrases — those whom he wills, in his sovereign pleas- 
ure, and elect them to eternal life without any in- 
justice to those not selected. Some Arminian writers 
also seem to favor the idea of infant guilt. But 
American Methodist Arminianism rejects this theory 
of inherited guilt, planting itself upon the axiom that 



CHILDREN UNDER ADAM. 



89 



if personal volition is necessary to personal sin, the 
personal sin is necessary to personal guilt. The Ninth 
Article of Religion of the Church of England also af- 
firmed the theory of hereditary guilt; but when Mr. 
Wesley adopted it among the Articles of the Method- 
ist Church in America, he eliminated from it every 
word savoring of that doctrine, as may be seen by a 
comparison of the two articles. 

THE SEVENTH ARTICLE, 

METHODIST EPISCOPAL 

CHURCH. 

Original sin standeth not in 
the following of Adam (as the 
Pelagians do vainly talk), but it 
is the corruption of the nature 
of every man that naturally is 
engendered of the offspring of 
Adam, whereby man is very 
far gone from original right- 
eousness, and is of his own na- 
ture inclined to evil, and that 
continually. 



THE NINTH ARTICLE, 
CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 

Original sin standeth not in 
the following of Adam (as the 
Pelagians do vainly talk), but it 
is the fault and corruption of 
the nature of every man that 
naturally is engendered of 
Adam, whereby man is very 
far gone from original right- 
eousness, and is, of his own 
nature, inclined to evil, so that 
the flesh lusteth always con- 
trary to the Spirit, and there- 
fore IN EVEEY PERSON BORN INTO 

this world it doth deserve 
God's wrath and damnation. 

This Ninth Article of the Church is based (Hard- 
wick, Hist, of the Art.) on Article II of the Augs- 
burg Confession, which was professedly Augustinian 
in its anthropology. It will be observed, then, (1) that 
in the Methodist Article, reflecting Arminian anthro- 
pology, the word fault is omitted. In the rejection 
of this word the Augustinian (Calvinistic) doctrine of 
innate personal fault was also rejected, so that, accord- 
ing to this standard, we are not guilty of a sin not of 
our choice. It will be noticed (2) that Wesley re- 



90 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

jected the doctrine that, because of inherited evil 
nature, every one born into this world deserveth God's 
wrath and damnation. Dr. Whedon (Meth. Quar. 
Rev., Oct., 1883), commenting on these rejected doc- 
trines, says: "We may say, therefore, conclusively, 
that these doctrines are not Methodism. We may say 
more — that Methodism does not merely ignore this 
dogma, but gives it a positive rejection and expulsion, 
so that it may be pronounced, as relative to Method- 
ism, scarce less than a heresy." What man is at 
birth he is by inheritance. He is the effect of an in- 
numerable number of forces, over which he had no 
control, and for which he is therefore not responsible. 
The causes may be traced back through generations 
of ancestors; to the heights of mountains and depths 
of valleys, to rivers, plains, temperatures, govern- 
ments — in a word, to the physical and mental condi- 
tions under which his ancestry has lived. This bent 
or bias of mind which these forces have produced, the 
affinity of the soul for things beautiful, truthful, holy, 
and ennobling, or for things gross and contemptible 
in their very crassness, is the raw material which the 
Will finds already in possession, but for w r hich the 
person is no more responsible than he is for the com- 
plexion of his skin or the color of his hair. There 
can be no praise in inheritance, and there can be no 
blame. For whatever is beyond the sphere of the 
Will, must be beyond the sphere of rewards and pun- 
ishments. 

But if children have violated no law, and are not 
guilty, why are they punished with death and sick- 
ness and infirmities? This is the Calvinistic argu- 



CHILDREN UNDER ADAM. 91 

ment to prove the original guilt of human nature. It 
assumes these misfortunes to be penal judgments, 
which is not true, unless it be true that the blue eyes 
of a girl must be considered as a blessing, and the 
black eyes of her brother a penal curse. These evils 
which affect humanity are the consequences* of primal 
sin originally, because the human nature, that of 
Adam, into which the effects of the first sin entered, 
is the nature which we inherit, and we can not 
escape the consequences if we inherit that nature. 
One may inherit a bad constitution from a sickly 
parent, but by no method of reasoning can we per- 
suade ourselves that he is responsible for the misfor- 
tune. Hence, Dr. Miner Raymond (Syst. Theol., 
Vol. II) 4 teaching true Wesleyan Arminianisra, 
says: "We deny that inherited infirmities are punish- 
ments. Mankind are responsible for what they are, 
no further than their character is self-imposed; what 
comes necessarily by transmission from ancestors is 
no fault of those upon whom they come. . . . 
Whatever countenance, therefore, the Scriptures may 
give to the idea that God imputes Adamic transgres- 
sions to Adam's posterity (which, by the way, is not a 
Bible formula) does not warrant the thought that God 
regards the race as guilty of the first sin, and there- 
fore punishes them for it." Dr. Wilbur Fisk (Calvin- 
istic Controversy) also teaches, "Guilt is not im- 
puted until, by a voluntary rejection of the gospel, 
man makes the depravity of his nature the object of 
his own choice." Dr. Whedon, on " The Will," in a 

* See Miley on The Atonement, page 71 ; and Entwickelung 
d. Paulin. Lelir., Leonhard Usteri, S. 35. 



92 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

passage treating on "irresponsible sin," says: "Thus 
man, as born after the fall, possesses, even before any 
volitional act of his own, a fallen nature. As com- 
pared with what, by the perfect law of God, he ought 
to be, he is wrong, evil, morally evil; yet, as not 
being the author of his own condition, he is not re- 
sponsible for his necessitatively received nature and 
moral state. His nature is no fault of his own until 
fully appropriated by the act of his own free will. 
That nature and state may doubtless be called sin, but 
only under a certain definition of the word. If all sin 
be anomia* a disconformity to the law, then there 
may be a sinful nature or state, as well as a sinful 
act. But where that nature or state is necessitatively 
received by the being without his will, or received 
only by the act of a necessitated will, if sinful, it is 
not responsibly sinful. It thence would follow that 
there may be disconformity to the law, unrighteous- 
ness, evil, moral evil, sin, sinfulness, all without re- 
sponsibility, guilt, ill desert, just moral condemnality, 
or punishment." 

Farther, it is nowhere written in Scripture that 
" in Adam all sinned" This phrase had its origin, as 
already shown, in 'a wrong translation. Dr. Weiss, 
on the passage referred to, notes : " To think that he 
(the apostle Paul) means that all have sinned in Adam 
as their forefather (cp. Phillipi and Meyer, in loco) 
is perfectly arbitrary, if once it is admitted that the 
Catholic traditional reference of s<p & to Adam is 
altogether mistaken; for the aorist which simply rep- 



* 1 John iii, 4. 



CHILDREN UNDER ADAM. 93 

resents the fact that all have sinned as a complete 
fact (in consequence of that very eta^ldev), by no 
means compels us to think of something which has 
taken place in and with the individual transgression 
of Adam."* So Whedon: €t But when the apostle 
declares that all have sinned, he declares not merely 
the natural disposition, but the actual sinning of all. 
The aorist, or past tense, here used of the word sinned, 
does in this Epistle often imply a general certain fact 
or state of facts. . . . All men sin ; such is their 
nature when their probation presents itself. Such 
being their normal action, such must be their perma- 
nent nature "1[ Godet comments extensively on the 
passage, giving the many significations which exegetes 
have adopted, himself holding the phrase as equiva- 
lent to all sinned in Adam ; but he denies that the 
eternal destiny of mankind was bound up in the acts 
of Adam. " Nothing," says he, " of all that passed 
in the domain, in which we have Adam for our father, 
can be decisive for our eternal lot. The solidarity of 
individuals with the head of the family does not ex- 
tend beyond the domain of natural life; what be- 
longs to the higher life of man, his spiritual and eter- 
nal existence is not a matter of species, but of the 
individual/ " J 

Dr. Hodge says: "Even on the extremest real- 
istic assumption that humanity as such is an entity, 
the act of Adam was not the act of all men. His 



* Biblical Theol., New Test.; Dr. B. Weiss, Prof. TheoL, 
Berlin. 

t Commentary on N. T., Romans. 

t Commentary on Romans, American Ed. 



94 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

sin was an intelligent act of self-determination; but 
an act of rational self-determination is a personal act. 
Unless, therefore, all men as persons existed in Adam, 
it is impossible that they acted his act. To say that 
a man acted thousands of years before his personality 
began does not rise even to the dignity of a contra- 
diction. It has no meaning at all. It is a monstrous 
act to make the Bible contradict the common sense 
and the common consciousness of men." * The sum, 
then, of the foregoing is admitting original de- 
pravity to be sin, yet for that sin the race is not 
responsible at birth. It is a necessitated sin, and 
therefore not punishable, just as a necessitated holi- 
ness is not rewardable. The objection which is urged 
against this doctrine is, that if children are not guilty, 
then they had no need of a Redeemer; and if saved, 
they are saved by some other means than the blood 
of the Atoning Lamb. He came to save sinners. 
They are not sinners, and therefore he is not their 
Savior ; from him, or through him, they receive no 
forgiveness nor sanctifying grace. This is an argu- 
ment in words only. If he is not a real Savior of 
the children under this Arminian view, neither is he 
in the Calvinistic scheme or any modification of it, 
since, if guilty, they are guilty only of sin in a meta- 
physical sense, in the abstract; and if pardoned, they are 
therefore only metaphysically pardoned. But Armin- 



* Commentary on Eomans, 236, — . See Tholuck in loco for 
some excellent remarks. Also Keuss, Histoire d. I. Theologie 
Chretienne, pp. 56, 106, 120. His views of imputation, however, 
based on the verb KaOicravai, can not be maintained, for the rea- 
son that that verb never has the meaning be says it has. 



CHILDREN UNDER ADAM. 95 

ianism presents Christ as a real Savior of childhood. 
While it is nowhere written in Scripture that chil- 
dren sinned in Adam, it is Scripturally true " in Adam 
all die/' and that, both physically and spiritually, hu- 
roau nature, apart from the influences of the Holy 
Spirit, is as darkness opposed to light. It is in a 
false relation to God, and so falls into the low plane 
of naturalism, and necessarily is affected by the laws 
which operate in that lower plane. Being thrown 
into a state contrary to itself as originally created, 
the soul is abnormal to itself, a victim to its own 
powers, so that it is destroyed within and without. 
God can not look upon it with complacency. It is 
a moral chaos, contrary to God\s nature; and, as such, 
is therefore incapable of fellowship with God. 

The infant inherits, we will assume, this abstracted 
nature ; and though not guilty — that is, justly liable 
to punishment for it — is nevertheless thereby in an un- 
holy state. This state is one of condemnation, not 
judicial, but as opposed to acceptation on the part of 
God ; and as a state or condition may be designated 
according to its principal characteristics, this human 
nature is declared to be dead in sin. To ask now 
what would become of such had there been no Re- 
deemer, is the same as if one should ask, What would 
be the quality of that thing, without which quality 
the thing could not exist ? Had there been no Re- 
deemer, Adam would have had no posterity. Chil- 
dren exist because, back of the first Adam, stood the 
second Adam, and to his Atonement does the race 
owe its existence. It was in Eden, in the very day 
of the fall, before children were born to Adam, that 

9 



96 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

the promise of a Redeemer was given; and hence 
Christ could say, in the most comprehensive sense: 
" Because I live, ye shall live also." (John xiv, 19.) 
But children are born, and are, because of this 
nature, at variance with the perfect law. The child's 
nature, thus apart from grace, is wrong and contrary 
to the will of God, and is therefore bad, though not 
guilty for the necessitated baduess. One may have 
inherited a depraved character or a sickly constitution 
without being responsible for the bad inheritance; but 
the fact that one is not responsible does not cure the 
disease nor destroy the immoral tendencies; another 
force must needs come in from without and produce 
the necessary change. And so, though not amenable 
for the inherited badness of our A.damio nature, we 
nevertheless suffer the results of such a character, 
which inevitably produces voluntary sinfulness, and, 
if not delivered from the power and dominion of this 
badness, we must suffer the eternal results of it, since 
undestroyed badness is eternal badness. From this 
condition, whether living or dying, the Atonement 
delivers the infant heir of Adam ; for the Atonement 
is a reconciliation. It reconciles the nature of man 
and the nature of God, by the change which it effects 
in the nature of the hitherto displacent creature. An 
atonement which does not, as an effectual cause, unite 
opposing parties, is not an atonement; for a real 
atonement must be both an expiation and a pro- 
pitiation. Hence the need of a Savior for chil- 
dren, since the badness must be destroyed and the 
displacency removed, for which purpose the Son of 
God came. 



CHILDREN UNDER CHRIST. 97 



CHAPTER IV. 

CHILDREN UNDER CHRIST. 

FOR the sake of clearness we have been consider- 
ing human nature as abstracted from all in- 
fluences of the Holy Ghost; as such it was purely the 
Adamic nature, bound by its own inability and alien 
to God. But as a matter of fact, such a nature was 
never born.* The fall of man was not a surprise to 
God. Hence the atonement was not an after-thought, 
but a provision originating in infinite love, determined 
upon in eternity, accomplished in time. Through 
this atonement the child is born into this world 
wholly different from what it would be, were there 
no atonement, assuming for the moment that there 
would have been any children born into this world 
had no atonement been provided. Under Adam the 
child possesses tendencies — strong bias toward evil 
which drives it deeper and deeper into sin without 
any power of deliverance. Human nature under 
Adam is the Laocoon entangled in the meshes of the 



* " For allowing that all the souls of men are dead in sin by 
nature, this excuses none, seeing there is no man that is in a 
state of mere nature ; there is no man, unless he has quenched 
the Spirit, that is, wholly void of the grace of God. No man 
living is entirely destitute of what is vulgarly called natural 
conscience. But this is not natural, it is more properly termed 
preventing grace." (Wesley's sermon, " Working out Our Own 
Salvation.") 



98 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

deadly serpents which crush it in their all-encircling 
folds and diffuse through every part their deadly 
poison. In the famous statue in the Vatican, the 
children are involved with the parent in the embrace 
of the serpents. But this statue would not truth- 
fully represent human nature at birth under Christ. 
In opposition to the sinward tendencies, the evil-ward 
propensities derived from Adam, there is set up in 
the nature of the child through the atonement, ten- 
dencies and propensities toward the good, which war 
with the bias toward evil, and restrain its terrible 
power. The child will, but it is not compelled by its 
Adamic inheritance, yield to evil, since through this 
same atonement the Spirit of God is not a mere 
spectator of human life and history, but a helping 
dynamic power to aid every one comiug into the 
world. The child under Christ, then, would be repre- 
sented rather by that beautiful symbol in the Capitol 
at Rome, of the " human soul with its choice of in- 
nocence or evil close at hand, in the pretty figure of 
a child, clasping a dove to her bosom, but assaulted 
by a snake." (Hawthorne's Transformation.) It may 
be that the serpent will coil around the child ; it may 
be that its heel will crush the serpent's head. 

The atonement of Christ was an atonement for the 
race, and the benefits of it accrue to every member of 
the race; whether lost or saved, no one has ever 
lived that has not received the grace of God in 
measure. These benefits as far as they relate to 
childhood may be briefly summarized, but the vast 
importance of the subject entitles it to, and demands, 
a more extended treatment. 



CHILDREN UNDER CHRIST. 



99 



RESULT OF ADAM'S SIN. 



The relation which children sustain to Christ, and 
he as the world's Redeemer sustains to them, is clearly 
seen in the fifth chapter of Paul's Epistle to the 
Romans. What the consequences of Adam's sin 
were for the human nature at its source, has already 
been shown and need not be brought forward again 
except for the purpose of illustration. The contrast 
between the results of Adam's transgression and of 
Christ's obedience in the mind of the Apostle will 
perhaps be more forcibly apprehended if the several 
antitheses in that remarkable section of the chapter 
named from verses 15 to 19 are put one over against 
the other, thus (italics our own): 

RESULT OF CHRIST'S OBE- 
DIENCE. 

So also is the free gift. 

Vs. 15. Much more did the 
grace of God and the gift by 
the grace of the one man, 
Jesus Christ, abound unto the 
many. . . . 

Vs. 16. So is the gift. . . . 
But the free gift came of many 
trespasses unto justification. . . . 

Vs. 17. Much more shall 
they that receive the abun- 
dance of grace and of the gift 
of righteousness rtign in life 
through the one, even Jesus 
Christ. 

Vs. 18. Even so through the 
one act of righteousness the free 
gift came unto all men to jus- 
tification of life. 

Vs. 19. Even so through the 
obedience of the one shall the 
many be made righteous 



But not as the trespass. . . . 
Vs. 15. For if by the tres- 
pass of one, many died. . . . 



Vs. 16. And not as through 
one that sinned ; for the j udg- 
ment came of one unto con- 
demnation. . . . 

Vs. 17. For if by the tres- 
pass of the one death reigned 
through the one. . . . 



Vs. 18. So then as through 
one trespass the j udgment came 
unto all men to condemna- 
tion. . . . 

Vs. 19. For as through one 
man's disobedience the many 
were made sinners. . . . 



100 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

Verse 15. But not as the trespass, so also is the free 
gift. This free gift is the opposite of the " trespass " 
in its effects; the latter causes death, the gift pro- 
duces life. It is the antidote to the trespass. The 
trespass holds human nature up to the wrath of God, 
the free gift supervenes and human nature is recon- 
ciled to God. Were this not true in some such sense? 
the free gift would be no gift. But the argument of 
the apostle is that the reconciling influence of the 
atonement, the ground of the gift or grace of God, 
is stronger than the accusing powers of the Adamic 
sin in human nature. Hence he says : " For if by 
the trespass of the one the many \ol noXXol — -all ; see 
Tholuck on Eom.; Meyer's Com.] died." 

Much more did the grace of God, and the gift by the 
grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound unto the 
many. Here death in its largest sense as embracing 
physical and spiritual death is meant, as is manifest 
from its antithesis to " life" which can but signify the 
immortal life.* But when did all die? All died 



* " Weder der leibliehe Tod ist an und fur sich da gewesen 
oder hat zu irgend einer Zeit geherrscht ohne den geistlichen 
Tod, noch giebt es einen geistlichen Tod an und fur sich, ohne 
dasz derselbe zugleich mit dem leiblichen Tod in Verbindung 
stande." (Krabbe, Die Lehre v. d. Siinde, S. 189.) See also Mess- 
ner, Lehre die Apostel, 210-213. Reuss remarks : " Le raison- 
nement de l'apotre dans ces versets pourrait paraitre se 
fonder sur ce que le terme de tiavarog est employe au sens 
propre et physique, tandis que £«# n'en serait pas simplement 
l'oppose, mais contiendrait encore l'idee de la felicite." (Hist. 
Christ. Theol. Livre IV, 118.) Tholuck in his Comm. on 
Romans insists that " airkdavov is not used here simply in the 
limited signification of corporeal death, but comprehends the 
davarog in its widest extent." 



CHILDREN UNDER CHRIST. 101 

when Adam sinned; that is, the nature which all 
have was then alienated from God, and it was then 
that the grace of God and the gifts by the grace of 
the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded unto the many 
(ol TToXAol) then yet to be. If, then, children are, on 
the one side, born with a sinful nature and obnoxious 
to God, this state of sinfulness either continues from 
the beginning of the race, notwithstanding the atone- 
ment, or else it is done away with, as far as the rela- 
tion of the child to God is concerned — done away as 
to condemnation, by the grace which the Apostle says 
has abounded unto all. To assume that this grace is 
of no avail against the fault of Adam, which also 
abounded to all, is absurd ; for if any child is saved, 
it must be saved through the regenerating results of 
the atonement, and the inherited depravity is swal- 
lowed up, covered over, by the grace of the one man, 
Jesus Christ. Hence, all children, instead of being 
born obnoxious to the wrath of God, come into life 
under the gracious influence of Christ's death. 

The atonement reaches backward to the fall, and 
forward to the culmination of human history. Through 
the atonement to be made " in the fullness of time/' and 
which was of saving power before it was historically 
accomplished on Calvary, and under the gracious in- 
fluence of which human history began, Abel, and 
Enoch, and Noah, and Abraham, and Isaac, and 
Jacob, the prophets and holy priests, and true sons of 
Israel — all who died "in the faith, not having re- 
ceived the promises" (Heb. xi, 13) — entered into fel- 
lowship with God here and eternal felicity in the life 
beyond, because Christ Jesus, as the Eedeemer, was 



102 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

"the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." 
(Kev. xiii, 8.) In Hebrews x, 1-4, it is written : " For 
the law having a shadow of good things to come, not 
the very image of the things, they can never, with the 
same sacrifices year by year, which they offer contin- 
ually, make perfect them that draw nigh. Else would 
they not have ceased to be offered, because the wor- 
shipers, having been once cleansed, would have had 
no more conscience of sins ? But in those sacrifices 
there is a remembrance made of sins year by year. 
For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats 
should take away sins." So, then, if the atonement 
was not effectual before the actual spilling of Christ's 
blood, how, or in what manner, were the people of 
God in the ages preceding delivered from sin? In all 
ages there has been but one Name, one Redeeming 
Power, through which men, whether Jew or Gentile, 
could find salvation, though the Name and the Power 
may have been unknown or but faintly understood. 
But however far back into the generations preceding 
the Advent we extend the sin-cleansing and God- 
reconciling power of the atonement, we do violence to 
the truth and the simplest reasoning, unless we carry 
back that Power to the beginning of sin in ruined 
Eden. 

In his Epistle to the Ephesian Church, St. Paul 
says: " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual 
blessing in the heavenlies, even as he hath chosen us in 
him before the foundation of the world" The election, 
and the slaying of the Lamb, became facts in the mind 
of God at the same timeless period, before the founda- 



CHILDREN UNDER CHRIST. 103 

tion of the world. The worlds were made for the 
Christ, and he has ever been the Coming One. So 
the Apostle, in the third chapter of the same epistle, 
speaks of the unfolding of the thought of God in the 
incarnation of the eternal Logos, and of the grace 
given him (Paul) to preach unto the Gentiles the un- 
searchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see 
what is the dispensation (phovofiia) of the mystery 
which from all ages {0.7:0 tojv accoucou) hath been hid in 
God. Through the grace-bringing power of this 
eternal atonement have men everywhere and in all 
ages come into the possession of that indefinable yearn- 
ing for the Good which comes to the surface iu the 
poets and philosophers before religion in Greece was 
reduced to Art, and in Rome was made synonymous 
with Patriotism. Through this same power have men 
everywhere the ability to perform moral duties, which 
is not natural — that is, according to the abstracted 
fallen Adamic nature — but which is the result of the 
prevenient grace, the working of that "true light 
which lighteneth every man coming into the world." 
Here the fine statement of the Danish theologian, 
Martensen, is most apt : " The manifestation of the 
Son of God in the fullness of the times points back 
to his pre-existence, — by pre-existence, understanding 
not merely that he had being originally in the Father, 
but also that he had being originally in the world, as 
the mediator between the Father and the world ; it ap- 
pertains to the essence of the Son, not only to have 
his life in the Father, but to live also in the world. 
As 'the heart of God the Father/ he is at the 
same time the ' eternal heart of the world/ through 



104 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

which the Divine life streams into creation. As the 
Logos of the Father, he is at the same time the eternal 
Logos of the world, through whom the Divine light 
shines into creation. 'In him was life, and the life 
was the light of men.' (John i, 4.) He is the ground 
and source of all reason in the creation, be it in men 
or angels, in Greek or Jew. He is the principle of 
the law and promises, under the Old Testament, the 
eternal light which shines in the darkness of heathen- 
ism, and all the holy grains of truth which are found 
in heathenism were sowed by the Son of God in the 
souls of men. He is the eternal principle of Provi- 
dence in the tangled web of human life; for all the 
powers of existence, all ideas and angels, are instru- 
ments to carry out the will of the all-ordering, all- 
controlling Logos. During his pre-existence, however, 
he was merely the essential, not the actual, mediator 
between God and the creature ; for the antagonism be- 
tween the created and the uncreated was as yet done 
away with merely as to the essence, not as to exist- 
ence (Essentia, Existentia) ; the strife between God 
and the sinful world was healed merely in idea, not in 
life and reality." The Methodist theologian, Dr. Pope, 
is no less comprehensive in his view of Christ's re- 
storing and conserving work in humanity: "The gift 
of righteousness to the race, before the succession of 
its history began, was of the nature of a provision to 
counteract the effects of sin, when original sin should 
become actual. Hence it follows of necessity that the 
benefit of the atonement provided before the founda- 
tion of the world was a free gift to the coming race of 
mankind. That gift was the restoration of the Holy 



CHILDREN UNDER CHRIST. 105 

Spirit — not, indeed, as the indwelling spirit of regen- 
eration, but as the spirit of enlightenment, striving, 
and conviction. Man did not set out on his way of 
sorrow without this preparatory Comforter. The virtue 
of the atonement began when the evil of sin began. 
The gospel was first preached when sin was first con- 
demned ; preached through the sentence passed upon 
Satan, the instrumental cause of human sin, thus 
meeting sin in its very origin."* 

Verse 18. " So, then, as through one trespass the 
judgment came unto all men to" condemnation, even 
so through the one act of righteousness the free gift 
came unto all men to justification of life." On the 
Adamic side the condemnation came upon human 
nature ; but as a Divine offset to that, the Apostle 
puts, as the result of Christ's obedience, " Justifi- 
cation to life." First, when did this justification 
come upon the race? and, secondly, what is this 
justification to life? Grounding our thoughts on 
the retroactive influence of the atonement, the jus- 
tification came when the condemnation came. With- 
out the saving virtue of the atonement, Adam 
would have perished immediately under the condem- 
nation. In Adam, human nature fell ; in Christ, the 
second Adam, it was justified; and since, had there 
been no atonement, there would have been no pos- 
terity to Adam, no continuation of fallen human 
nature, the justification must have come when 
Adam was permitted to live, and posterity permitted 
to come into existence. In our thought, we must go 



*Cornpend. Christ. Theol., Vol. II, pp. 56, 57. 



106 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

back to the beginning, and while we behold the suc- 
cessive generations coming forth into life with the 
" trail of the serpent over them all," we must also 
see that over them is the wrath-averting grace of 
Christ's atonement. "As Adam brought a general 
condemnation," says Fletcher of Madeley, " and a 
universal seed of death upon all infants, so Christ 
brings upon them a general justification and a uni- 
versal seed of life." And in agreement therewith, 
and with the logical requirement of a consistent Ar- 
mmianism, Dr. Pope teaches : " The condemnation rest- 
ing upon the race, as such, is removed by the virtue of 
the one oblation, beginning with the beginning of sin. 
The nature of man received the atonement (Rom. vii) 
once for all. God in Christ is reconciled to the race 
of Adam." Each individual born into the world 
begins his existence under the same fundamental con- 
ditions as the race began its existence. Hence, if 
David, voicing the profound conviction of the human 
heart, should say, " Behold I was shapen in iniquity, 
and in sin did my mother conceive me," he could 
also say, under the inspiration of the Eternal Spirit : 
" Thou didst make me hope when I was upon my 
mother's breasts. I was cast upon thee from the 
womb; thou art my God from the womb of my 
mother." (Ps. xxii, 9, 10.) " For thou hast pos- 
sessed my reins ; thou hast covered me in my mother's 
womb. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being un- 
perfect ; and in thy book all my members were written, 
which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet 
there was none of them." (Ps. cxxxix, 13, 16, 17.) 
What this justification is, may be more clearly 



CHILDREN UNDER CHRIST. 107 

understood when we understand what its -opposite 
" condemnation " is, as here set forth by the Apostle. 
This condemnation, as the whole chapter shows, was 
the judicial sentence passed upon the race by the 
Divine Judge, and it involved death, both phys- 
ical and spiritual. Man is declared to be what his 
act has made him — a sinner; and justice, in declaring 
that, declares the sentence of eternal banishment from 
God, the source of all life; and thus man, as a sin- 
ner, is doomed to undergo the full penalty of violated 
law. But immediately at this point, and parallel with 
it, Divine Love enters, and through the atonement, 
man receives justification, i-u order to eternal life, the 
opposite of eternal death. Humanity, as a whole, is 
justified by the death of Christ, just as a whole hu- 
manity was condemned in Adam. This does not 
mean that every distinct individuality, as such, was 
actually justified in Christ's death; for that would be 
but to fall into the Calvinistic error that one cau be 
acted upon before he really exists. But it does mean 
that, as human nature is individualized, and as that 
individual comes into this world, he then particular- 
izes this justification in himself which had been 
wrought out and declared for the whole race. 

Justification is usually spoken of as a forensic 
term only, as signifying simply " acquittal," and as 
bein^ an act in God's mind towards the sinner. Now 
in a human court of justice that may be the full 
meaning of the word, since the question before -such 
a tribunal is not whether the culprit is morally culpa- 
ble, but whether he is legally so. But since God is 
a moral judge, he can not acquit the sinner if he is 



108 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

guilty, though he may pardon him. He can not de- 
clare one to be just apart from justice. Justification, 
then, can not be limited in its signification to the bare 
notion of acquittal ; but like the term reconciliation, 
which has been made to denote a change in man to- 
wards God, when it is really a reciprocal idea, involv- 
ing a turning of man toward God and of God toward 
man, it must involve a twofold idea — a recognition 
of, and a declaration of, the right relationship of the 
sinner before the law. The recognition is based, not 
upon the character of the man considered abstractly 
in himself, but upon that character as it is pardoned in 
Christ. Back of God's act of justifying is Christ's 
act of dying, "the just for the unjust." Without 
the atonement, there could have been no justification 
Hence Dr. Raymond says: "An unjust man, a sinner, 
is somehow made a just, a righteous man, or he is 
considered and treated as such, or both of these ideas 
included." 

Children, then, are justified before God in Christ; 
they are brought out from under the state of con- 
demnation or displacency toward God into a state of 
salvation, and there is no absolute necessity why from 
this state the child should ever fall. No gift of God 
is ever given in order to be lost. 

Seemingly, perhaps only in seeming, is this op- 
posed to the view of Mr. Watson, who says (Vol. II, 
p. 58): "As to infants, they are not indeed born jus- 
tified and regenerate; so that to say that original sin 
is taken away, as to infants, by Christ, is not the cor- 
rect view of the case." Let us grant that infants are 
not regenerate in the usual technical sense, and that 



CHILDREN UNDER CHRIST. 109 

original sin is not taken away, it does not follow, 
therefore, that infants are not born under the atone- 
ment, and so are justified. Regeneration is the work 
of the Holy Spirit upon the individual soul — not 
upon the race as a unit, at any given time; but justi- 
fication is a declaration toward the race as a unit, 
based upon the atonement, and as each member of the 
race comes into existence, he partakes of that justifica- 
cation. 

It is no objection to this that original sin re- 
mains; for if that sin is a tendency toward evil, a sin- 
wardness, such remains also in the adult believer. 
The ideas that children are not born in a justified 
state, but are born under the " free gift, the effects of 
the righteousness of one which extended to all men," 
as Mr. Watson says, have about them a quality of ir- 
reconcilability. For, if infants are not justified by 
the free gift under which they are born, of what value 
is the "free gift" to them? What is the result of 
the effects of the righteousness of one which extended 
to all men? Such a gift is no gift to them as infants, 
for it conveys nothing; such, " effects" of such right- 
eousness are no effects, for they effect nothing. Rather 
more agreeable to our view is that of Bishop Merrill, 
who, while dissenting from the affirmation of infant 
regeneration, as we do also in its properly accepted 
sense, but asserting that infants are in the kingdom, 
says: "We are therefore led to conclude that, with- 
out the formal powers of regeneration, and without 
any appreciable exercise of active spiritual agency, 
they are, by virtue of the unconditional benefits of the 
atonement, placed in such a state of gracious accept- 



110 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

ance as answers to the gracious state reached by adults 
only through justifying faith." * 

Another of the benefits, then, accruing to infants 
through the atonement is that they are justified, are 
in a state of salvation, which is not different from the 
same state in an adult believer. Here again the same 
principle which applies to the adult applies also to the 
infant; for we are not "justified by faith" in the 
sense that it is the faith which pardons, but by the 
Judge of all, through virtue of the atonement. This 
is plainly stated by the Apostle in verse 19: " For as 
through one man's disobedience the many were made 
\_y.aT£OT&drj<7av\ sinners, even so, through the obedience 
of one shall many be made [xaraaradijcrouTi] righteous." 
The Apostle seems to have no other idea than, as 
men were made sinners through Adam, that through 
the merits of Christ's death all men are cleared from 
the condemnation of Adam's actual sin. If this is the 
meaning of the Apostle, and if it is not the plain 
meaning, then there is nothing plain in the Word of 
God that all men come into existence in a state 
of Tightness toward God. From this there are two 
possible modes of escape — first, emphatically to deny 
it, without any reason for the denial; and secondly, to 
affirm, with Dr. Hodge and other Imputationists, that 
" xadcoTrjpt never in the New Testament means to make, 
in the sense of effecting or causing a person or thing 
to be other than it was before," and that therefore, 
"when the Apostle says that the many were (xare- 
GTaQr t aav) constituted sinners by the disobedience of 



* Christian Baptism, p. 25. 



CHILDREN UNDER CHRIST. Ill 

Adam, it can not mean that the many were thereby 
rendered sinful, but that his disobedience was the 
ground of their being placed in the category of sin- 
ners. It constituted a good and sufficient reason for 
so regarding and treating them." (Comm. on Rom.) 
But all this is simply saying that God regarded men 
as being what in reality they were not. Such a thing 
is inconceivable. It is contrary to the Divine nature. 
God can not do wrong, nor see wrongly. He sees 
things as they are. If men were not made sinners in 
the manner previously shown, they could not be 
justly treated as sinners; and if they were not made 
righteous, they could not be treated or regarded as 
being righteous. God is under no necessity for re- 
sorting to fiction, and a theology that is true to the 
facts of God's revelation and the intuitions of hu- 
manity, rests on other foundations. 

The meaning which Dr. Hodge gives to xa6iarrjfit 9 
upon which meaning the whole theological fiction 
above mentioned rests, that verb never has in the 
New Testament; but the meaning which he objects 
to, is its usual meaning. In the New Testament the 
word occurs twenty-one times: Matt. -xxiv, 45, 47 ; 
xxv, 21, 23; Luke xii, 14, 42, 44; Acts vi, 3; vii, 
10, 27, 35; xvii, 15; Rom. v, 19 (twice); Titus i, 
15; Heb. v, 1 ; vii, 28; viii, 3; James iii, 6; iv, 4; 
2 Peter i, 8. In none of these instances is there any 
ground for the astounding statement of the renowned 
exegete. On the contrary, every passage establishes 
the position that " xo.diarrj[it signifies to make, in the 
sense of effecting or causing a person or thing to be 
other than it was before." In 2 Peter we read : " If 



112 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

these things be in you and abound, they make you 
[xaOiazTjGiv] that ye shall be neither barren nor un- 
fruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." 
Most assuredly the abounding of these Christian 
graces would make or constitute these Christians dif- 
ferent from what they were before. In Matt, xxiv, 
45, 47, our Lord says : " Who, then, is a faithful and 
wise servant, whom his Lord hath made \xaziazr t ovJ\ 
ruler over his household, giving them meat in due 
season?" Was not this man different when made a 
ruler from what he was before? Before he was made 
a ruler he certainly was not a ruler. The same re- 
marks apply to these other words : " Verily I say 
unto you that he shall make him ruler over all his 
goods." And in Matt, xxv, 21, 23: " Thou hast 
been faithful over a few things, I will make thee 
ruler over many things." In Luke xii, 14: "And 
he said unto him, Man, who made me a judge or a 
divider over you ?" 

In these instances, selected at random, and in the 
other passages, it will be seen, on the most cursory 
examination that the word signifies to make or to 
constitute one what he was not before, and that it is 
never used to regard one as being what he is not. 
Cremer (Biblico-Theol. Lex.) remarks on the word, 
in the passage under consideration, Rom. v, 19, that: 
" The choice of the somewhat peculiar term, instead 
of the simple yiyvtaQat, is not to be explained on the 
supposition that the word means to present, to cause to 
appear, — a false supposition, since mOtczdvae, unlike 
auviozavat, denotes an actual appointment or setting 
down in a definite place," etc. Robinson (N. T. 



CHILDREN UNDER CHRIST. 113 

Lex.) defines the word thus : " KadioTrjfii, to cause to 
be, to render, to make. Pass., to be, or become, to be ren- 
dered, made." 

Olsbausen says the word certainly signifies to be 
set forth as something, and by the setting forth to be 
declared something, so that the expression is parallel 
with "imputed for righteousness." But as the dis- 
course relates to Divine acts, it must be borne in 
mind that God can not pronounce any one to be what 
he is not." 

Tholuck observes: "They who cling to the ob- 
jective view are obliged to translate xadcardadac 
declared, which, however, is a sense that can not be 
defended." 

Godet is in agreement : " The real gradation, from 
one verse to the other, is as follows : ' They were 
treated as sinners, by the sentence of death (vs. 18) ; 
for they were really made sinners in Adam* (vs. 19.)" 

De Wette, in opposition to Grotius, Beza, Bengel, 
and others, says : " The thought of the Apostle is, that 
men are not merely reckoned as sinners, but in reality 
become such — wirMich Sunder geworden." So when 
the Apostle says, " Through the offense of one many 
were made sinners," he must be understood as teach- 
ing that all men were made sinners in reality, and 
that God saw them, and declared them to be for that 
reason really and truly as such. This being true, it 
then follows that all who are born of Adam are in a 
most true and literal sense made righteous or put in 
a justified state — a state of real salvation, through the 
grace of the atonement, the free gift which hath 
abounded (overflowed) unto all men. 



114 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE CORE OF THE PROBLEM. 

IN" the study of this profound question we can not 
stop with the results obtained from the previous 
chapter. These results themselves suggest another 
and a higher question : Are children born regenerated? 
This is the heart of the problem, and is therefore en- 
titled to the utmost consideration. Not that there is 
any possibility of engrafting such a dogma upon 
evangelical truth, but for the reason that it is high 
time that popular misunderstanding of the first prin- 
ciples of Arminian theology should give way and the 
teachings of early Methodism be fairly apprehended. 
That there has been a drift, perhaps unconscious, 
from the original tenets of the fathers of Methodism 
on this subject will scarcely be denied. They did not 
teach that infants are born regenerate, however, but 
on the contrary that they come into the world in a 
depraved condition. " Arminius, Wesley, Fletcher, 
and Fisk could not be said to hold that infants are 
' born regenerate/ The true statement would be 
that they are born into the world depraved; but, as 
Fisk expresses it, ' the atonement meets them with its 
provisions at their entrance. ' Their justification or 
regeneration, so far as it exists, is not congenital but 
post-genital. The atonement fills this probationary 
world with its influence, and the human being re- 



THE CORE OF THE PROBLEM. 115 

ceives his atoning justification consequent upon his 
having entered into it. It is as if a room were filled 
with a purifying influence, and a leper is cleansed by 
entering within its walls. The question is not as to 
the genuineness or the depth of the depravity as de- 
rived from Adam, or from the immediate parent. 
That depravity is done up in all the elements of the 
foetal man. Nor does regeneration, infant or adult, 
absolutely remove it until completed at the glorifica- 
tion; for both infant and adult still retain suscepti- 
bility to temptation and sin, mortality, disease, and 
death, until the final renovation."* 

Thus wrote the late Dr. D. D. Whedon, one of 
the truly great theologians of the century and of the 
Christian Church. In the same Review, from which 
we quote, he has presented the theology of Wesley, 
Fletcher, and Fisk, with such comments thereon ex- 
pressing his own views, in such a manner that, although 
somewhat extensive, we reproduce them here as, to 
some extent, the correct teaching of Arminian Meth- 
odism : 

" Miss Beecher announces that a new development is taking 
place in the Methodist Episcopal Church, which, she imagines, 
will result in childhood Church-membership. We doubt the 
newness of the matter she describes. To show how great our 
advance is, she quotes a passage from Arminius, in which that 
great Doctor taught that infants are by ' the covenant compre- 
hended and adjudged in their parents,' and so have ' sinned ' 
and become ' obnoxious to God's wrath.' But if she will turn 
to his works (Vol. I, page 3 IS, American edition), she will find 
that by that same covenant there is, in his opinion, a provision 
of grace in which children are so included, as putative be- 
lievers, 'as not to seem to be obnoxious to condemnation.' 



* Methodist Quarterly Be view, January, 1873. 



116 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

Both of these views are consistent, and may be correct. Con- 
demned by the covenant in Adam, living children, like be- 
lievers, may be justified in Christ. If Miss Beecher will turn 
to Fletcher's ' Checks,' Vol. I, page 461, she will find that writer 
expressly maintaining the doctrine of both the ' justification ' 
and the ' regeneration ' of living infants. In a note he adds 
these remarkable words : ' Those who start at every expression 
they are not used to, will ask if our Church admits the justification 
of infants f I answer, undoubtedly ; since her clergy, by her 
direction, say over myriads of infants, " We yield thee hearty 
thanks, most merciful Father, that it has pleased thee to re- 
generate this infant.^ ' He then proceeds to prove that this 
regeneration is antecedent to baptism, and universal. And he 
instructs us so to construe his mention of 'the regeneration of 
infants,' in his Appeal (a work adopted in our course of minis- 
terial study), Part V, Inference 7, as designating regeneration 
unconditional upon baptism, and of course as existing in the 
case of every living infant. So firmly convinced was Fletcher 
that Adamic depravity does not preclude infant regeneration, 
that it was in a powerful work in favor of depravity that he 
maintained such regeneration. If this be a new development, 
Miss Beecher may be thus assured it is by no means ' a new 
doctrine.' According to Fletcher's interpretation, indeed, our 
infant baptismal service teaches the same doctrine. Our bap- 
tismal Scripture lesson from Mark x, 13, etc., which declares 'of 
such is the kingdom of heaven,' teaches, in his view, that in- 
fants are truly born of the Sptivit as ground of their now being bap- 
tismally l bom of water.' They are to receive the outward sign 
because they have received the inward grace. We say not that 
these teachings of Fletcher are an article of our Church faith, 
nor that they are true or false. We only say that they are 
found in one of the standards which has always been put by 
our Church into the hands of her young ministers ; and such is 
even there affirmed to be the doctrine of our standing Ritual. 
If Fletcher's interpretations be true, Miss Beecher will specially 
observe, we have been proclaiming living infant regeneration at 
every infant baptism from the very foundation of our Church. But 
this Arminian and Fletcherian view is very different from her 
Pelagian denial of a depravity by nature derived from Adam. 
" Mr. Wesley's views of the baptismal Scripture lesson ap- 
pear scarce different from Fletcher's. ' The kingdom of heaven ' 



THE CORE OF THE PROBLEM. 117 

there mentioned lie held to be the 'kingdom set up in the 
world ' (see his comment on Mark x, 14, and Matt, xix, 14) ; 
that is, the regenerate earthly Church ; he held that little chil- 
dren ' have a right to enter ' that kingdom or Church ; and 
that ' the members of the kingdom ' ' are such ;' that is ' nat- 
ural' children, or ' grown persons of a child-like spirit.' That 
membership he interprets to be not contingent and prospective, 
or conditioned upon death, but real and present. And yet he 
believed that no one can be within that kingdom who is not 
regenerate. (See his note on John iii, 5.) We have, then, the 
syllogistic premises : All members of the kingdom of heaven 
are regenerate ; children are such members, and then what con- 
clusion a logician like Mr. Wesley would draw we leave others 
to decide. 

" Dr. Fisk's view appears in the following words : ' Although 
all moral depravity, derived or contracted, is damning in its 
nature, still, by virtue of the atonement, the destructive effects 
of derived depravity are counteracted ; and guilt is not im- 
puted until by a voluntary rejection of the gospel remedy man 
makes the depravity of his nature the object of his own 
choice. Hence, although, abstractly considered, this depravity 
is destructive to the possessors, yet through the grace of the gos- 
pel ALL ARE BORN FREE FROM CONDEMNATION. So the apostle 

Paul : "As by the offense of one, judgment came upon all men 
to condemnation, so by the righteousness of one, the free gift 
came upon all men unto justification of life." ' (Calvinistic Con- 
troversy.) 

"Here we are told that all are born 'free from condemna- 
tion ;' and this freedom from condemnation is identical with 
the 'justification' named by St. Paul. And this freedom from 
condemnation or justification (not merely a title to contingent 
prospective justification) is at birth upon each living individual 
infant; and universal, being in spite of our depravity derived 
from the atonement. The infant does not wait for death before 
he is justified. Death, actual or approaching, is no condition 
of salvation. 

" In regard to Mr. Fletcher's doctrine of infant justification 
we remark : 

"1. No one affirms that the regeneration of an infant, as 
taught by Fletcher, is psychologically absurd, or contrary to 
human or Christian consciousness. The doctrine of infant re- 



118 CHRISTIANIT Y AND GHIL DEO OD. 

generation, either unconditional or conditional upon baptism, is no 
new doctrine, but has been a dogma in all the great sections of the 
Church, whether Greek, Roman, or Protestant. This is a valid 
contradiction to Dr. Nadal's statement, that infant regeneration 
is ' in the teeth of the teachings of the Orthodox Church of all 
ages.' The regeneration of the infant is nothing different in 
nature from that in the adult, except as modified by its subject; 
and the use of the term is in both cases equally proper, involv- 
ing no innovation in theology of either thought or language. If 
an infant can be depraved, it can also be undepraved ; if it can 
be positively unregenerate, it can also be regenerate. In the infant 
nature as truly as in the adult there may exist all the potencies, 
predispositions, and predeterminate tendencies, natural or 
gracious, for an actual, though not responsible, moral nature, 
good or bad. 

" 2. The doctrine of depravity is neither invalidated in, nor 
modified by, the doctrine of infant regeneration, whether un- 
conditional or conditioned upon birth, baptism, or death, actual 
or approaching. In either case, the depravity comes from 
Adam, is by nature, and is equally complete; and, in either 
case, regeneration comes from Christ, and is by grace, being 
extra to and above nature. The unborn John the Baptist was 
' filled with the Holy Ghost ' (Luke i, 15), and ' leaped ' at the 
approach of the mother of the unborn Savior. The unborn 
Jesus was ' that holy thing.' And such cases at once explode 
the objection of the ' manifest absurdity ' of ' regeneration be- 
tween conception and birth.' Nor is there any more absurdity 
in the infant being regenerated between conception and birth, 
than in his being depraved at conception or between conception 
and birth. And this would seem to finish, too, all the argu- 
ment about the absurdity of generation and regeneration being 
simultaneous. 

"3. If Arminius, Wesley, Fletcher, and Fisk are right in 
their positions, then the Arminian doctrine of falling from grace 
must be true. All adult sinners are apostates. And we see 
the reason why Calvinists must reject those positions unless 
they would become Arminians. All who become unregenerate 
or unjustified— that is, all adult sinners, as Fletcher expresses 
ii^have ' sinned away the justification of infants:' Or, as Fisk 
says, the ' man makes the depravity of his nature the object of 
his choice,' and not until then is ' sin imputed unto him.' If 



THE CORE OF THE PROBLEM. 119 

there be those happy exceptions, who have evidently not 
'sinned away the justification of infants/ Fletcher would doubt- 
less have held them to be Christians, and at responsible age 
have admitted them to communion. And an Arminian like 
Fletcher would have no difficulty with our Lord's declaration 
to Nicodemus, 'Except a man be born again,' etc.; for he would 
understand that such words are addressed to all apostates ; that 
is, to all adult sinners, entirely irrespective of any past expe- 
rience, whether of an infant or a previous adult regeneration. 
"To all this we may add, that the seventeenth of our 
Articles of Faith declares that 'Baptism is ... a sign of 
regeneration ;' and that ' the baptism of children is to be re- 
tained in the Church;' that is, children are to receive the 
'sign of regeneration.' But, surely, the sign ought not to be 
conferred where the reality does not and may never exist. The 
' outward sign of an inward grace ' is a false sign, where there 
is no ' inward grace.' " 

There are those, however, who can see nothing in 
regeneration, other than that which, with its con- 
comitants, is experienced by adults. All conceptions 
of what is involved in regeneration are limited to that 
period of human life. Where this will lead us, if 
true to our logic, we shall presently see. 

For instance, regeneration involves a moral change 
of character. That signifies a change or redisposition 
of the affections and desires. But, since the infant 
has no moral affections or desires, and has therefore 
never exercised them so that they must be changed 
in quality, it follows of course that the child is not 
regenerate. 

Further, if regeneration means, as it does, a 
change of will, so that the volitionating power is 
changed from one direction to another — that is, is 
brought from under the dominating influence of car- 
nal instincts into subjection to the law of God — then, 

11 



120 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

since the child has no will, but acts as it is acted 
upon, not exercising, consciously and deliberately, the 
power of choice, it follows again that the child is not 
regenerate. Whatever else we may say of regenera- 
tion, the power of God's Spirit on the human will is 
the essence of it. All other effects on the soul flow 
from and are subordinate to this moral change of the 
will — the seat of personality. 

But if this reasoning is correct, we are driven to 
a conclusion worse than the dogmas of ultra Calvin- 
ism concerning non-elect infants. For, since the psy- 
chological nature of all children is the same, no child 
dying in infancy can be saved; since, for the above 
reasons, no child can be regenerated. 

But the reasoning is not faulty. It is our lim- 
itations of grace that are in fault. The error lies in 
the application — in an effort to apply the doctrine of 
regeneration, with all of its theological definitions, in 
the same sense to children as it is applied to adults. 
This can not be done. On the other hand, if we lay 
aside the limitations of technical terms, which have 
an established meaning, and rightly so in their appli- 
cation to adult humanity — to whom revelation is pri- 
marily adapted, and to whom it is primarily given — 
and ask ourselves, In what does the acceptance of 
the adult believer differ from that of the child in the 
sight of God ? or, in what does the righteous quality 
of the adult soul differ from that of the child soul ? 
we shall find, if we are true to Scriptural principles, 
that the state of the child is equally acceptable to 
God with that of the regenerated adult. 

Such is our conclusion: "The state of the living 



THE CORE OF THE PROBLEM. 121 

infant is essentially the same for an infant as the state 
into which regeneration brings the adult" 

What the processes are in bringing about this 
state it is not possible to determine, any more than 
they can be in the adult. But, whatever grace is be- 
stowed upon the child-nature through the atonement, 
the will is not changed, for it has not yet been brought 
into conscious activity. This is also true of other 
powers of the soul. But over against the tendency to 
evil, there is originated, by the Holy Ghost, the ten- 
dency to the good. This is a restraining power over 
the tendency to evil, and the same may be affirmed of 
the other powers and capacities of the soul. 

In Christian homes, where this work of the Holy 
Spirit on human nature is recognized, and these ten- 
dencies toward, and affection for, the good and the 
holy, are piously nurtured and developed, they come to 
maturity at an early age. The child, uuder the sweet 
example of holy living and prayer on the part of those 
who gave it being in the world — the most sacred act 
of mortals — may enter into a conscious sense of fel- 
lowship with God, without ever having served con- 
scious apprenticeship to Satan. The path to Paradise 
does not lead through the depths of Gehenna. 

If the child dies, this work is consummated by 
Him who began it; if it lives, it develops contin- 
ually, as we have said, until the child obtains conscious 
experience. Even then, when the precise moment of 
conscious acceptance was, the child may never know — 
a fact attested by the experience of eminent Christians 
in every walk of life. 

This, it must be admitted, while theoretically true, 



122 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

is not always actually true. Why it is not always 
practically true is not because it is not true at all, but 
for the reason that the child, with the opening of its 
senses and the consequent awakening and growth of 
desires and instincts, without a corresponding devel- 
oping of the will (the higher faculties being developed 
last), falls an easy victim to the sin ward tendencies 
already wrapt up in its nature. The lower qualities 
of the child-nature have, so to speak, the start of the 
higher; by use, physical desires are strengtheued; 
latent tendencies rise to the surface, and are trans- 
formed into acts, and these, by repetition, become 
stereotyped in habit. Then again, in heathen lands, 
or in families in Christian lands resembling heathen 
families in this respect, the inwrought bias toward 
the heavenly is soon overcome by the co-existing 
and ever-active tendency toward the evil, because of 
the lack of holy nurture, the deadening influence of 
bad example, and the other manifold and subtle in- 
fluences arising from unspiritual environments. These 
affect the moral nature of the child in the most sus- 
ceptible and plastic period of its existence. A child 
is more susceptible to the influences of its surround- 
ings than a person who has the power of will ; for in 
the child there is lacking the resisting quality which 
enables the grown person to overcome, in some degree, 
the stream of tendencies flowing in upon him. Mr. 
Herbert Spencer, speaking in the high name of 
science, says: "It is a corollary from that primordial 
truth, which, as we have seen, underlies all truth 
that whatever amount of power an organism expends in 
any shape is the correlate and equivalent of a power 



THE CORE OF THE PROBLEM, 123 

that was taken info it from without" (Principles of 
Biology, p. 57; italics ours.) Our environments, then, 
in the sensitive period of life, determine very much 
the quality of our whole after-life; and in the light 
of this tremendous truth, affirmed both by the laws of 
nature and the teachings of revelation, we apprehend 
the profound significance of Christ's saying, that it 
were better for one that a millstone were tied about 
his neck, and he were cast into the depths of the sea, 
than that he should offend one of these little ones. 

As the child, then, may never know the moment 
when the blighting effects of unholy environment de- 
termined the bent of his will, or gave character to the 
trend or direction of his moral energies, so he may 
never know the precise hour when the Holy Spirit of 
God laid in the unconscious depths of his soul the 
foundations of a life which should grow with the 
years, and develop into the final glory of a perfect 
creation. The feeling, the consciousness of love for 
God and our Blessed Redeemer may, and, as a matter 
of fact, often does, precede the exercise of the child's 
reason. And even if the child does not experience 
this relation toward God till the age of reason, it is 
not the reason which then convinces the child, but the 
felt fact in the child's heart, about which he can not 
reason, and which exists independent of the reason. 

Nevertheless, of such transcendent importance is 
this matter to the Church and to every individual, that 
there must come a time in the history of every child when 
there shall be a public and formal recognition of the 
claims of God, a conscious acceptance of the work of 
grace previously accomplished } and a deliberate sur- 



124 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

render to the Lord CJirist as a personal Redeemer. 
Failing to do this is to resist the Holy Ghost, to re- 
nounce the work already done, and is therefore a fall- 
ing away from, and a deliberate forfeiture of, that 
justified state produced in the soul by the Holy 
Spirit. 

Such, then, are the benefits accruing to children 
through the atonement of our Lord. Children sus- 
tain a vital relation to the Redeemer; for they are re- 
deemed by his blood, and receive in measure justifying 
grace. Whether this grace is common grace or saving 
grace, matters not. The distinction is theological, and 
not real ; for there are not in essentia two kinds of 
grace, since all grace is saving grace, if not resisted. 
Standing, then, on an equality with the justified adult 
relative to the saving merits of Christ's death, chil- 
dren have therefore equal right with such to member- 
ship in the universal Church of Christ. The right of 
both to such membership rests on precisely the same 
ground. 

But if the child has a Scriptural right to member- 
ship in the universal Church, he has the same right to 
membership in any phase or branch of that Church. 
To deny him such recognition is to violate the very 
charter by virtue of which such a Church itself exists. 



CHRIS T 'S RECOGNITION. 125 



CHAPTER VI. 

CHRIST'S RECOGNITION OF CHILD-MEMBERSHIP IN 
THE CHURCH. 

IN the fortieth chapter of Isaiah the prophet an- 
nounces two events of primal importance to the 
Jewish race — (1) The restoration of the captive na- 
tion, and (2) the establishment of the everlasting 
Messianic kingdom. This last is the spiritual side, 
or concomitant, of the former, an interpretation 
based upon the authority of John the Baptist and 
our Lord himself. It is of Christ, then, as the re- 
storer and upbuilder of Zion, that Isaiah prophesies 
when he cries joyfully : " O thou that tellest good 
tidings to Zion, get thee up into the high mountains; 
O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem, lift np 
thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not afraid. 
Say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God ! 
Behold, the Lord God will come as a mighty one, 
and his arm shall rule for him. Behold, his reward 
is with him, and his recompense before him." (xl. 9, 10.) 

Of this Coming One, two particulars are prophe- 
sied, which set forth as a distinguishing characteristic 
his all-embracing love for the spiritual house of Israel : 
" He shall feed his flock like a shepherd ; he shall gather 
the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and 
gently lead those that give suck." 

It is not difficult to assume in the usually un- 



126 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

critical, off-hand way that this minute description of 
the Messiah's spirit is simply a general statement of 
his care for Israel, or that it is an Oriental poetizing 
of Christ's tenderness for the weak and lowly. We 
understand it (1) as pointing out the care of Christ for 
the Church — his flock. "Fear not, little flock, it is 
your Father's good pleasure to give you the king- 
dom." (See also Ezek. xxxiv.) And (2) that the 
Messiah, true to the covenant made with Abraham, 
will have regard for all the seed of Abraham, even 
the lambs. In this respect, the prophecy is a decla- 
ration that the house of Israel shall lose nothing in 
the Messianic day; but that the idea of the family, 
preserved so rigorously in Israel from the days of old, 
shall be the fundamental idea in the building of that 
kingdom which shall never decay. The prophet 
Malachi teaches the same thing of that day. When 
speaking of the forerunner of Christ, he says, in the 
name of Jehovah : " Behold, I will send you Elijah, 
the prophet, before the coming of the great and ter- 
rible day of the Lord, and he shall turn the heart of 
the fathers to the children, and the heart of the chil- 
dren to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth 
with a curse." (Mai. iv, 5, 6.) That cessation of family 
feuds is primarily referred to, as Keil and Henderson 
think, is no doubt true ; but that involves all that we 
affirm — the preservation of the family as the base of 
Church and State in the Messiah's period. 

The question, then, is, Did Christ, as the prom- 
ised Messiah, fulfill this prophecy of himself, as he 
did other minute prophecies, such as being " dumb " 
before his murderers ; making " his grave with the 



CHRIST'S RECOGNITION. 127 

rich in his death ;" riding " into Jerusalem ?" In 

John x, he declares himself to be the Good Shepherd, 
and we can not consider that discourse as having 
been suggested by his physical surroundings at the 
moment, and therefore as having but an accidental refer- 
ence to Old Testament characteristics of the Messiah. 
The Coming One of the prophets is the Shepherd, 
who shall feed the flock of Jehovah. That Christ 
Jesus exhibited the character of a shepherd, and often 
spoke of himself as such ; that, to be literal, he an- 
swered to the ideal of prophecy in respect to the 
children, is as much a fulfillment of prophecy in him 
as any other act recorded of him and pointed out by 
the finger of inspiration. 

It is a fact that Jesus did fulfill the first particular 
prophecy quoted above from Isaiah. Did he also 
fulfill the second one? In Matt, xvii it is written: 
" In that hour came the disciples to Jesus, saying, 
Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven ? And 
he called to him a little child, and set him in the 
midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, Ex- 
cept ye turn and become as little children, ye shall in 
no wise enter the kiugdom of heaven. Whosoever 
therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the 
same is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And 
whoso shall receive one such little child in my name, 
receiveth me; but whoso shall cause one of these little 
ones, which believe in me, to stumble, it is profitable 
for him that a great millstone should be hanged 
about his neck and that he should be sunk in the 
depths of the sea." (Comp. Mark x, Luke xviii.) 

Underlying these words we perceive clearly Christ's 



128 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

recognition and approval of the moral character of 
little children, and therefore their fitness for member- 
ship in the Church. The simple fact that he intro- 
duced a child as a model for his disciples, or as an 
illustration of his teaching, is sufficient proof of the 
proposition. Children, according to the explicit affir- 
mation of Christ Jesus, possess that character, without 
which the disciples themselves can not enter the king- 
dom. If with this character the disciples can enter, 
shall the children, who have this character, be re- 
jected? On what grounds? Whatever reasons may- 
be manufactured through the exigencies of precon- 
ceived notions, or the requirements of a traditional 
theology, whose chief support may be in the authority 
of some great name, we are brought face to face with 
the fact emphasized by Christ himself, that this char- 
acter is not to be obtained by adults, except through a 
change in the moral quality or disposition of the mind. 
We say " character," and not the particular virtue of 
humility, great as it is ; for Christ said, "Except ye turn 
[arpoKfYjTe], and become as little children," etc., show- 
ing that it was the nature of children he had in mind. 
The humility he would have his disciples possess is 
not the result of a resolution, but the product of a 
character; not the politic reserve of a philosophical 
prudence, but the fragrant blossom of a guileless 
soul. 

Again, Jesus identifies himself with the children : 
" Whoso receiveth one such little child in my name, 
receiveth me." The love of Christ for children was 
not a sentiment arising from the inborn love for the 
beautiful, which, in some degree, is common to us all; 



CHRIST'S RECOGNITION. 129 

nor was it an expression of his holy tenderness for the 
lowly and helpless. Jesus loved nature ; all that was 
beautiful in it was reflected in the pure mirror of his 
soul, as his discourses abundantly prove, and it could 
not have been otherwise, as Beauty is of God. But pro- 
founder than all aesthetic feelings was the Lord Christ's 
recognition of the child-soul, and his perception 
of the moral quality of him who, in Christ's name, 
should w receive one such little child." Christ sees in 
him, like seeking like, and it is just such souls to 
whom Christ conies, whether they be Jew or Gentile, 
and by whom, without the expenditure of miracle, or 
the wisdom of words, he is the most gladly welcomed. 
The World's Redeemer is identified with the child as 
he is with a believing adult, with this difference ; that, 
in the case of the adult, there is a consciousness of the 
union which is wanting to the child. Nevertheless, 
no child is Christless. While there may be no mys- 
tical union, there is a union which is preserved until, 
by voluntary act, as in the case of a believing adult, 
the child severs himself from Christ and breaks the 
bond. 

It is "such little child" — that is, one just such as 
Christ held by him, one who had not yet blurred the 
purity of his childhood — with whom the oneness is 
affirmed. To reject such a one, is to reject the result 
of the work which Christ came to do ; that is, to make 
men abandon the selfishness, the unbelief, and the 
carnality of a depraved spirit. To reject this is to re- 
ject the Spirit of Christ, whatever may be our intel- 
lectual acceptance of the Jesus of history. It may be 
objected to, that all this refers to those believing ones 



130 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

who resemble little children. Supposing for the 
moment that to be the case, the argument still holds 
good; for whatever such believing ones have which 
makes them like children, the children themselves 
already possess. But the objection is not valid. 
Christ had said nothing about believing adults, he 
does not mention them until he finishes all he had to 
say concerning the children. At verse 6, the transi- 
tion is made to the case of the disciples as is indi- 
cated by the particle 3e and the addition of the words, 
"those believing in me." In Luke's account this is 
clearly seen. At verse 6, then, Jesus passes to his 
discyples, and not before, and from that particular ap- 
plication he proceeds to believers in general. 

In Matt, xix, 13-15, is the record of another act 
fulfilling the prophecy quoted from Isaiah : " Then 
were brought unto him little children, that he should 
lay his hands upon them and pray; and the disciples 
rebuked them. But Jesus said, Suffer the little chil- 
dren and forbid them not, for of such is the king- 
dom of heaven. And he laid his hands upon them 
and departed thence." This is the second time Christ 
asserted that children belong to the kingdom of 
heaven. Any doubts that may arise are dissipated 
by a single reading of the text; it is self-luminous. 
In Mark x, 13-16, the same event is narrated with 
additions (verses 15, 16), one of which is very im- 
portant for the light it throws upon Matt, xviii, 3. 
There it is said, that unless the disciples become as 
little children, they shall not enter the kingdom. In 
Mark the application is general : " "Verily I say unto 
you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of 



CHRISTS RECOGNITION. 131 

God as a little child, shall not enter therein." Now, 
by combining these two accounts and that of Luke, 
we have the whole transaction before us. And ob- 
serve : 

First. Christ was greatly displeased. (Mark x, 14.) 
The word dyavaxrico expresses the strongest indigna- 
tion ; at least it is much stronger than the English 
" displeased," and it shows that our Lord had grave 
reasons for resenting the act of the disciples, since we 
can hardly believe that the serenity of his mind would 
have been so profoundly disturbed, as the use of this 
word indicates, if the preventing of the children by 
the disciples did not vitally affect Christ's redemptive 
relation to them. In precise .agreement with this 
important view, observe 

Secondly. The tense of the verb xcoAuere, forbid. 
Had Christ intended his commandment, " forbid them 
not," to be understood as applying to that particular 
act of the disciples, he would have used a different 
tense and we would have instead of fir) xcokveve, 
(present imperative), the subjunctive fir) xcoAuarjre. 
That tense or form of the word would limit Christ's 
command to that specific time. But the present fir) 
xcoX'jsts is continuous in its application, and is good 
for, is in force for, all ages and all peoples accepting 
his gospel. 

In Isaiah it is said of the Coming One: " He shall 
feed his flock like a shepherd, he shall gather the lambs 
with his arm, and carry them in his bosom." Without 
emphasizing the fact too much, one can not fail to be 
struck with the coincidence between this prediction 
and the narrative of Mark. His words are : " He 



132 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

took them up in his arms." Dr. A. Clarke notes that 
one of the Itala versions reads, " in sinu suo," in his 
bosom. His notes might have gone farther, since other 
versions read in a similar manner. The Ethiopie,* et 
collocavit eos in sinu suo, and he gathered them in his 
bosom. The Persian, eos itaque in sinum suum sus- 
cepit, and when he had taken them in his bosom. The 
Arabic has Deinde amplexatus est eos, when he had 
embraced them. The Vulgate, et complexans eos, and 
embracing them. The Syriac, however, reads, tulisset 
eos super brachia sua, when he had taken them up in 
his arms. There is no need for microscopical methods 
of exegesis, nor is the New Testament so obscure as to 
be in need of such to illustrate its simple story. 
Between the two modes of expression there is no 
material difference. But it may and will be said that 
such a little thing as taking children into his bosom 
is too small and incidental a matter to be considered 
as a fulfillment of such a sublime prophecy. The 
word of prophecy is full of small things. And the 
fact before us is not smaller than the prophecy of 
Zechariah relating to Christ's riding upon the foal of 
an ass; nor smaller than other minute predictions 
of the coming Messiah. It is not smaller than Christ's 
prophecy that the besiegers at the fall of Jerusalem 
would cast a trench about the devoted city — a fact 
which Titus was driven to accomplish by the unex- 
pected turn of affairs. 

The foregoing ought to be sufficient in proof that 
when our Lord said "of such" is the kingdom of 



* Brian Walton, Biblia Polyglotta, Cum Interpret. Latina. 



CHRIST'S RECOGNITION. 133 

heaven, he included the children. The necessities, 
however, of sectarian theology have thrown about 
these simple words a blinding mist. Accordingly the 
phrase " kingdom of heaven " does not mean the 
Church, if "such" refers to children, but the invisi- 
ble kingdom of the saints on high. On the other 
hand, if that phrase means " the Church," and " such " 
refers to children, then " little children" must signify 
adults with child-like dispositions. 

But consider the combined narrative: 
(1) The kingdom of heaven. The formula, king- 
dom of heaven {fiaatXda zebu oupavcov) is peculiar to 
Matthew.* In the other Gospels and in the Epistles 
we have "the kingdom of God" or simply " the king- 
dom." s From the Old Testament stand-point it is the 
prophetic designation of the Messianic state, the "Day 
of Jehovah" (rhrro'v), the "Last Days" (np\r\ nnnx); 
and when John the Baptist preached of the near ap- 
proach of the kingdom of heaven (Matt, iii, 2), he 
signified thereby the fulfillment of the Messianic hope, 
or the incoming of the Messianic kingdom. (Yon 
Colin, Biblische Theol., N. T., § 155.) 

What this kingdom of God is, is nowhere ex- 
pressed; for it was unnecessary to explain that which 



* Edersheini, The Life and Times of Jesus, the Messiah, 
Vol. I, 267, notes : "According to the Rabbinic views of the time, 
the terms ' kingdom,' ' kingdom of heaven,' and ' kingdom of God ' 
(in the Targum on Micah iv, 7, 'kingdom of Jehovah'), were 
equivalent. In fact, the word ' heaven ' was often used instead 
of ' God,' so as to avoid undue familiarizing of the ear with the 
sacred name. This probably accounts for the exclusive use of 
the expression, 'kingdom of heaven,' in the Gospel by St. 
Matthew." 



134 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

was the hope of Israel from the beginning. As Weiss 
says,* the idea is regarded as one quite familiar to 
the people. In fact, no one in Israel, which was 
from the first to be a kingdom whose supreme Lord 
and King was Jehovah, could thereby understand 
anything else than a kingdom in which the will of 
God is fulfilled perfectly upon earth as by the angels 
in heaven." It is the realization of the theocratic 
ideal, the manifestation of the everlasting kingdom of 
the Son of David, which even in ancient prophetism 
had its roots in, and owed its origin to, the activities 
of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of men, by which 
means also the Gentiles should come unto Zion. 

There is another aspect of the kingdom, which is 
not another, only so far as it may serve to bring into 
relief the idea of the Church. For the Messianic 
Church is the Messianic kingdom, and the visible 
Church is, in the true conception of it, the outward 
form of that kingdom. Dr. Edersheim, whose ex- 
tensive and minute knowledge of Jewish thought is 
entitled to the greatest respect, objects, with his usual 
learning, to this view. "It is difficult to conceive/' 
says he, " how the idea of the identity of the kingdom 
of God with the Church could have originated. Such 
parables as those about the sower and about the net 
(St. Matt, xiii, 3-9 ; 47, 48), and such admonitions as 
those of Christ to his disciples in St. Matthew xix, 12; 
vi, 33; and vi, 10, are utterly inconsistent with it." 
(Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Vol. 1, 126, n.) 



*Bib. Theol., N. T. ; see also Koestlin, Das Wesen der 
Kirche, s. 29. 



CHRIST'S RECOGNITION. 135 

Passing over the alleged grounds for his objection, 
we may remark that the learned author himself can 
not avoid the force of the natural reasons which one 
would reach from a study of the Old Testament 
teachings of the kingdom and the founding, growth, 
and progress of the Cliurch of Christ in the world 
which it is, but of which it is not. "The kingdom 
of God," he says, " or kingly rule of God, is an ob- 
jective fact ; the visible Church can only be the sub- 
jective attempt at its outward realization, of which the 
invisible Church is the true counterpart." This is all 
for which we would contend. We would never affirm 
that the "kingdom of heaven" is identical with the 
visible Church in every respect, time, and place, but 
only that the Church is the visible manifestation in 
time of that invisible kingdom. The aim and purpose 
of this Church, imperfect as it is, because of the ma- 
terial of which it is composed, is to represent in itself 
the ideal kingdom. With this concept there is no 
difficulty with the parables of the sower and the grain 
of mustard-seed. He who is truly a member of the 
Church is a naturalized citizen of the invisible king- 
dom ; and he who belongs to that kingdom can not 
be denied the privileges pertaining to him in its out- 
ward or historical form. In the apostolic idea, so far 
as the kingdom can be historically realized, it is iden- 
tical with the Church. Where Christ is, there is the 
Church; and where the Church is, there is the Christ. 
Whether it is so now or not, is not the question ; it 
was so at the beginning. For as Delitzsch says : "The 
New Testament Scriptures know nothing of a visible 

and an invisible Church, which are related to each 

12 



136 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

other as a shell to the kernel, as a body to the soul; 
nor of a Church of the regenerate, and another of the 
unregenerate ; it knows only of the one Church, and 
tfiat is the one body which is related to Christ as its 
head, and is animated by his own Spirit." * His defi- 
nition of the kingdom, and the relation to it of the 
Church, as given in his work, " Von Hause Gottes," 
is : " The kingdom of God is the rule of God in Christ; 
but the Church is a society of men within it, who are 
united with each other under Christ as their head." 
In the teachings of Jesus and the New Testament 
writers the kingdom of God often coincides with the 
Church of Christ. In Acts i, 3, St. Luke says that 
during the forty days previous to the ascension, Jesus 
spoke to his disciples "the things concerning the 
kingdom of God " — that is, " whatever concerned the 
doctrine, discipline, and establishment of the Christian 
Church." (Dr. A. Clarke, Com., in loo) " On all 
matters relating to the constitution of the Christian 
Church to be planted and established among the Gen- 
tiles." (Bloomfield, Greek Test.) " Speaking to them 
that which related to the Messiah's kingdom, which 
he would erect." (Meyer, Com.) "We must dis- 
tinguish between ' speaking concerning the kingdom' 
and ' speaking concerning the things of the king- 
dom.' . . . It is plain, finally, from verse 6, that 
the word (Haadeia, kingdom, can not here denote the 
Christian religion, as Kuinoel supposes." (Olshausen, 
Com.) 

* Vier Buecher von den Kirche ; see Prof. Candlish, The 
Kingdom of God, pp. 195, 205, and Bannerman, The Scriptural 
Doct. of the Ch. 



CHRIST'S REC0GX1TI0X. 137 

Now, whether or not the kingdom of God embraces 
the visible Church, and so far is the Church, or the 
Church is the kingdom, it is indubitable that, upon 
the express authority of the Ruler of that kingdom, 
children are members, subjects of it. This beiug 
true, they possess that moral fitness without which no 
one can enter or remain in that kingdom. If the 
kingdom is in no sense the Church, nevertheless chil- 
dren, because they belong to that kingdom, can not, 
on Scriptural grounds, be denied membership in the 
Church, which is less perfect in every sense than that 
kingdom, since it is ever striving to realize in itself 
the perfect excellency of that kingdom. Moral fitness 
through Christ is the only ground for Church mem- 
bership on the part of the adult, and on that ground 
precisely, according to the teaching of Christ and his 
apostles, does the child stand. 

To all this it may be said that children are not 
considered as being morally unfit by those who deny 
their right to Church membership, but since admis- 
sion to the Christian Church is through baptism, and 
since Christ neither baptized those little children, nor 
left express commandment of child-baptism, he showed 
thereby that, while they may be subjects of the king- 
dom, he did not intend they should be members of the 
Church. Now, such an objection proceeds upon the 
assumption that in the thought of Christ the king- 
dom was wholly distinct from the Church; and since 
we have dwelt upon that long enough, it will be ob- 
served in direct reply to the objection: (1) That 
Christ did not baptize any adults; and (2) it must be 
remembered that Christian baptism was not yet in- 



138 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

stituted. That sacred rite was not instituted until 
the unchangeable formula " In the name of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," without 
which it never can be given, was solemnly announced 
by the Lord Jesus among his last words on the day of 
his ascension. John's baptism, which was not a sym- 
bol of the new birth, which is the idea contained in 
the Christian formula, was in no way applicable to 
children from the stand-point of Christ. Nor would 
it be now, leaving for the moment the fact of Chris- 
tian baptism out of view/ According to our Lord's 
teaching children were already members of the king- 
dom, but John's baptism was a baptism unto repent- 
ance, the fundamental idea of it being that those re- 
ceiving it were outside the kingdom which was come 
in the person of the Christ. It was a preparation on 
the part of those confessing their sins for the spiritual 
teaching and work of the coming Messiah. 

(2) Having considered the phrase ' kingdom of 
heaven,' and the arguments arising from it, observe 
that in referring to children, Christ said " of such " is 
that kingdom composed. The Greek word tocooto^, 
such, properly denotes the innate or essential quality 
of the thing to which it is applied. " Of such kind, 
nature, or quality " (Liddell and Scott) ; " Talis, 
hujusmodi" (Schrevelii) ; " Innuit qualitatem rei" 
(Schleusner) ; " Of this kind or sort " (Robinson 
N. T. Lex). Therefore, when Christ said "of such " 
is the kingdom, he could not have meant other than 
the children which were brought to him, and all chil- 
dren for all time; for it is only to those having just 
the quality which children possess the kingdom 



CHRIST'S RECOGNITION. 139 

belongs. The idea of similarity is swallowed up in 
the stronger notion of identity of kind or quality. 
This word is preceded by a word which introduces the 
reason why Christ was displeased, and why he com- 
manded the disciples to permit the little ones to come 
to him. The particle T^p y for y in the New Testament, 
as in classic Greek, introduces the reason for what is 
said, done, or commanded. Christ was not indignant 
because those bringing the children would be disap- 
pointed, nor because the children themselves would be 
deprived of his immediate blessing. He gives no 
such reasons. His reason, and the only reason he gave, 
was, For of such is the kingdom of heaven. 
The Jehovah Jesus knew his own. 



140 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH IN THE OLD AND NEW 
TESTAMENTS. 

THE purpose of the present chapter is to lay be- 
fore the reader the Old Testament reasons, on 
the part of the Hebrew-Christians, for child-mem- 
bership in the Apostolic Church. From this it must 
not be inferred that that fact depends upon the va- 
lidity of any argument on the oneness of the Church 
in the Old and New Testaments. Nothing could be 
further from the truth. Whether children were mem- 
bers of the Church in the Apostolic Age or not, is 
wholly a matter of history. But the completeness of 
the evidence demands that the groundwork should 
be as broad as possible. Moreover, and what is of 
greater import, when all the facts bearing upon the 
case are brought clearly before us, the conclusion 
forces itself upon us in such a way as to leave no 
room for rational doubt. 

By the unity of the Church under the Hebrew 
and Christian dispensations is meant, that they both 
possessed the same head, the same spiritual laws, the 
same promises, the same Redeemer, the same opera- 
tions of the Holy Ghost, the same gospel in essence, 
and were organized and preserved for the same divine 
purpose of the ages. The Church began its formal 
existence before Israel became a nation. If, then, we 



UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 141 

strip the Church of the Old Testament of its political 
wrappings, sever it, as we easily may, from its rela- 
tions with the State — since affiliations and political 
connections formed nothing essential to its integrity — 
there will be presented to us, in embryo, the Church 
of the New Testament. Whatever we find in that 
Church, the same may be seen in the Church of the 
patriarchs. Nothing has been, or can be, added 
to what constituted the Church at Pentecost. And 
nothing is in that Church which is not a development 
of everything essential to human salvation in the an- 
cient commonwealth of Israel. The same law of 
development which has operated in the physical world 
and in human history, and illustrates itself in the 
physical and mental growth of the individual, obtains 
here also. The Christian Church is not a creation, 
but a development, a continuation under more vital- 
izing influences, of the Church originally founded in 
the family of Abraham. This unity is not that of a 
work of art, such as a piece of sculpture, which is, 
in a sense, mechanical, and may be wholly destroyed 
by time and the action of the elements. It is the 
unity of a living body, which is animated in every 
part by the same soul, and warmed and nourished by 
the same blood. 

Now this unity of the Church may be shown (1) 
by the name which both organizations bear in the 
Word of God ; (2) from the nature of the Abrahamic 
covenant; (3) from prophecy; (4) from the teachings 
of Christ and his apostles. 

I. The name. In the Old Testament we find 
such terms as "the house of Abraham," or of 



142 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

" Israel," denoting those who followed in the steps 
of the great patriarch, the father of the faithful. 
We also find the terms " sanctuary of the Lord," 
" the congregation of Israel," or of the Lord, 
and the " assembly of the people of Israel," or 
of the Lord. But, omitting a study of the terms 
" house of Abraham " and " house of God," which 
would repay careful consideration, we fix upon two 
principal terms, which constantly occur throughout 
the Old Testament — rnjp, Edah, and Snp, Kahal. In 
whatever Books of the Old Testament we turn to, we 
find that all meetings of the children of Israel, for any 
purpose whatsoever, whether of a religious or a politi- 
cal nature, are referred to under these important words. 

Gesenius defines n^y, Edah, as an " appointed 
meeting, assembly. Spec, Assembly, congregation, com- 
munity of the Israelites. ... (1) The congregations 
of Jehovah ; (2) a domestic or private company, family, 
household" 

Fiirst defines it in a similar manner, as (a) " an 
assembly, association, congregation ; (b) an assembly of 
people; (c) a congregation; in a narrower sense, an 
association, a union, an assembly ; (d) of a household 
family; that is, all that belongs to a house in the 
widest sense of it. (Job xv, 34 ; xvi, 7.) " 

Davidson, also : (1) " An assembly or meeting ; (2) 
a company, or group, a family." 

This word resembles Kahal in meaning, yet be- 
tween them there is a wide and important difference. 

Snj}, Kahal, signifies, according to Davidson, (1) 
a calling together, or being convoked ; (2) a convoca- 
tion, assembly, a multitude or crowd. 



UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 143 

Gesenius : (1) "A coming together, a convocation of 
the people ; (2) an assembly, congregation, convocation.^ 

Furst defines Kahal : " (1) A festive convocation, 
an assembly or convocation of the people for sacred ob- 
jects — rnyn, the Edah; hence applied to the whole 
congregation of Israel; generally an assembly with 
the adjective S"HJ, Great. 

Kostlin (Schaff's Herzog, Art. Church) defines 
Edah as an assembly in general ; and Kahal as an as- 
sembly for divine worship. 

By a comparison of the two terms a distinct dif- 
ference, and at the same time a certain similarity will 
be seen. Edah is an assembly, as is also Kahal ; but 
the difference lies in this, — that the first signifies a 
gathering of people at a regularly appointed meet- 
ing; not necessarily all the people, although a col- 
lection of the whole would constitute an Edah, but a 
part only. It is related to Kahal as a particular con- 
gregation or society is to the whole Church or organi- 
zation of which it forms a part. Kahal can never be 
applied to such a fractional division of a Church or 
nation. It signifies the whole people united by definite 
laws and purposes, and thus forming a grand unit. 
So Vitringa (De Synagoge Yetere, p. 80) : " The 
term SnfJ- Kahal, is used in a narrower, more re- 
stricted sense than the term nn^, Edah. Kahal denotes 
strictly the whole of any multitude of people united in 
the bonds of one society, and constituting some kind 
of republic or city ; while the term rnj£, Edah, signi- 
fies simply any gathering or assembly of men, whether 
it be great or small, but especially one which is fixed 

and appointed," imprimis tamen condictum statumque. 

13 



144 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

It is dissimilar in its meaning from Edah, in that it 
signifies the convocated or called out, which meaning 
Edali does not have. Hence we are not surprised 
that Edah never occurs in Genesis, while Kahal is 
found there four times. In three of these it is used 
in connection with Abraham, in whose family, as re- 
marked above, the Church, the called out, began its 
formal existence. (See Isa. li, 1 ; xlix, 8.) 

The Septuagint, or Greek Version of the Old Tes- 
tament, translated 286 or 285 B. C, has been generally 
received by Jews and Christians as a faithful render- 
ing of the Hebrew original. It was used in the 
synagogues, and is more frequently quoted by the 
New Testament writers than the Hebrew itself. In 
this ancient version, which our Lord and his apostles 
often quoted, the same distinction in the employment 
of words is adhered to in rendering Edah and Kahal. 
The former occurs in the Canonical Books of the 
Hebrew Old Testament, about one hundred and 
forty-one times. The Seventy (Septuagint) have 
translated it about one hundred and thirty-one times 
by the term aupaycoyyj, synagogue, but never by the 
word 'Exxlrjoia, Ecclesia. Kahal occurs in the same 
books eighty-two times, and the translators have 
rendered it seventy-two times by the word 'Exxfo]oia > 
Ecclesia (Church). It is evident, then, that the Greek 
term Ecclesia correctly and fully expressed the Hebrew 
idea in the word Kahal.* Every convocation or as- 



*"Satius tauien fuisset, ut opinor, si to ^j-jp semper reddi- 
dissent per kniikrjoia, quid haec notio formata videtur in Lingua 
Grseca ad clare exprimendum Hebraeum ^np-" (De Synag., 
p. 84.) 



UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 145 

sembly is an Edah, and may be so spoken of, the true 
import of the term being understood, but it can not 
by itself indicate the whole people. But, as Vitringa 
observes, this is just what Kahal always and every- 
where signifies.* It was to the Kahal of Israel, " all 
the congregation of Israel," that the command came 
to inaugurate the Passover. (Ex. xii, 3-6.) In 
Leviticus iv, 13, it is the whole congregation, the 
Kahal, which if it shall err, that shall offer a young 
bullock for a sin-offering; for a glance will show that 
the phrase ^yp" rnj£ hi, the whole Edah of Israel, is 
equivalent to ^npn, the Kahal, which occurs in the 
same verse, and in verse 14, and also in verse 21, 
where it is said that the bullock is the sin-offering 
for the assembly (^nj^n,). In chapter xvi, 17, it is for 
the whole Assembly (^np- 1 ?^) of Israel, the Kahal, the 
Church, that Aaron shall make atonement. See also 
Num. x, 7; xiv, 5; xv, 15; xvi, 3. 

We have seen that the LXX have translated this 
word Kahal by 'ExxAyata, Ecclesia, a word derived 
from ixxaAefo, to call out, to summon an assembly. 
Now this same word Christ and his apostles employed 
to designate the idea of the Christian Church. It is 
found one hundred and fourteen times in the New 
Testament, and in every case, except one or two, it 
denotes the whole of the Christians in one place (a 
part of which may be an Edah or synagogue) or, as 
in numerous instances, the universal Church of Christ. 
Acts v, 11 : " And great fear came upon the whole 
Church [ixxfyai(i] ;" Acts viii, 3 : " Saul laid waste 

*Sed vocabulum /Pip semper et ubicurnque, nisi fallor, 
designat universum populi civitatern. P. 83. 



146 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

the Church [ixxfyacoi] ;" " Unto the Church [kxxtyoloi] 
of God which is at Corinth " (1 Cor. i, 2) ; on which 
Meyer remarks : " Compare rnrr Snp (Num. xvi, 3 ; 
xx ; 4.) The expression is with Paul the standing 
theocratic designation of the Christian community in 
which the theocratic idea of the Old Testament ^np^ 
Kahal, presents itself as realized ; it is the nkjpcoa^ y 
fullness, of this Snp, Kahal." 

As far, then, as the name is concerned, the Churches 
of the Old Testament and of the New are identical. 
Both are called by the same terms of endearment in 
addition to their technical designations. In Isaiah 
lx, 5 ; Jeremiah xxxii, 2, the Church of the Old 
Testament is called " his bride." In Eevelation xix, 
7, this is declared of the Church of the New Testa- 
ment. The Lord is wedded to both, they both are 
the one " bride." The Church of the Old Testament 
is called in the New, Christ's " own house." (Heb. iii, 
1-6.) It was the " Church in the wilderness," and in 
both Testaments the Lord calls the members of his 
Church " his people," " his chosen people." 

But to found the unity of both Churches on the 
signification of mere words would be to trifle with so 
grave a theme. Our purpose is far otherwise. It is 
the identity of thought underlying both terms, and 
not their etymology upon which emphasis is laid. 
This has been shown above in the tender language of 
God concerning both Churches. To the pious Israelite 
the Hebrew terms Kahal and Edah {synagogue) signified 
something more than a collective unity of the children 
of Israel. They meant to him that the Israelitish 
community as a chosen people had its existence apart 



UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 147 

from other nations for a holy purpose, and that it 
was originally designed for a special end in the 
economy of redemption. Thus Cremer notes (Biblico- 
Theolog. Lex., second German Ed.) : " The use of 
these words, therefore, was determined by something 
else than the mere thought of national unity, and it 
is self-evident that the underlying thought is the 
function of the people in the plan of salvation. . . . 
The same thought lies at the root of the word as 
used by Christ, so far as it was suggested by the Old 
Testament. . . . When Christ says, ' I will build 
my Church/ we are scarcely reminded that ixxfyaca 
denoted in profane Greek the place of assembly as well 
as the Assembly, but rather that the Old Testament 
community was the house of Israel. Accordingly 
Ixxlrjoia, ecclesia, denotes the New Testament com- 
munity of the redeemed in its twofold aspect. (1) 
The entire congregation of all who are called by and to 
Christ, who are in the fellowship of his salvation — in 
the Church. (2) The New Testament Churches as 
confined to particular places." 

II. The nature of the Abrahamic Covenant. The 
first formal organization of a kingdom of God on 
earth is revealed to us in the family of Abraham. 
We see that family chosen out of the world, separated 
to the worship of the true God, and related to him by 
bonds of faith and gracious promises made by him to 
them. God revealed himself to Abraham, not merely 
by the inner voice, as when the command came to 
leave Chaldea and begin the nomadic life in Pales- 
tine, but in a personal manifestation, a theophany, the 
first since Jehovah revealed himself to Adam in Par- 



148 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

adise. In this revelation to Abraham was contained, 
as the Apostle Paul teaches, the principles of the gos- 
pel; and our Lord himself said: " Abraham saw his 
day, and was glad." The whole tenor of the Divine 
address to this remarkable man shows that his family 
was to be a repository and witness and teacher of the 
revelation given. We further see that the truths 
made known were accepted by faith, and all subse- 
quent history of Abraham's posterity proves that 
faith in the promises was a distinguishing element in 
the religion of Israel. Further, Abraham stands be- 
fore Jehovah, and receives these promises, and enters 
into covenant relation with him, not as an individual 
only, but as the representative of a class who shall be 
as the sand by the sea-shore or the stars of heaven for 
multitude. He is Abraham, the father of many na- 
tions. " In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth 
be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice." (Gen. 
xxii.) The covenant which God made with Abra- 
ham is recorded in Genesis xvii, 1-14. This covenant, 
like, in general, all the promises of God, has a two- 
fold aspect — one relating to his providential care over 
those obeying his precepts, and the other bearing di- 
rectly upon the spiritual blessing, of which the lower 
aspect is but the type. 

In the change of Abraham's name he is consti- 
tuted the Father of Multitudes. History has demon- 
strated that these can not be world-kingdoms ; and 
Scripture teaches that they are all those of all nations 
who, through faith in the world's Redeemer, become 
the spiritual seed or children of the Patriarch. " For 
the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the 



UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 149 

heathen by faith, preached the gospel beforehand unto 
Abraham, saying, In thee shall all the nations [rd. 
iOwj] be blessed." (Gal. iii, 8.) The family of Abra- 
ham thus became the Church, having a definite be- 
lief, a definite object of worship, a definite ordinance, 
obligatory on all becoming members, and a distinct 
purpose in its mission in the world. 

But this covenant of grace is the same by which 
all believers in Christ become heirs of the promise; 
for, as the Apostle in the Epistle to the Galatians 
teaches, " the blessing of Abraham has come upon the 
Gentiles in Christ Jesus" (chap, iii, 14). Now this 
could not be if the covenant was different from the 
gospel announced by Christ and the Apostles. Paul 
distinctly declares that God preached the gospel to 
Abraham ; and this being true, there can be no differ- 
ence in fact between the New Testament Church and 
the Church founded by Jehovah in the family of Abra- 
ham. Just what the precise, exact thought of the 
Apostle was, one may not be able to express otherwise 
than in general terms. But this we do know, that 
God revealed himself to Abraham as El Shaddai, the 
All-sufficient, Powerful God; that immediately after 
revealing his character and his attitude towards Abra- 
ham, and in him toward the world, showing a desire 
to enter into fellowship with man, he commands the 
Patriarch to be " perfect ," and then follows the 
promise of an everlasting and universal blessing. 
So that in this record there is wrapped up the germ 
of the wonderful truths brought to completion in the 
appearance and work of Christ, the Promised Seed. 
If there is an essential difference between the Abra- 



150 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

hamic Church and the Church of the New Testament, 
it is extremely difficult to understand the Apostle's 
reasoning when he says, " They which are of faith, the 
same are the children of Abraham " (Gal. iii, 7), and 
"by faith Abraham became the father of all them that 
believe" (Rom. iv, 11); since between the two — the 
Church of Abraham and the Church of Christ — there 
is a wide gulf. Nor can we see anything in the 
strong and luminous proposition, "If ye be Christ's, 
then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to 
promise." (Gal. iii, 29.) The fact is, if the two 
Churches are different it must be admitted, with rev- 
erence, that the Apostle's reasoning is wholly incon- 
sequential. There is no way by which we can see the 
logical connection between the two ideas. But on the 
ground of unity of the Churches the argument of the 
Apostle is grand and self-evident. 

Abraham entered into this covenant with God 
through faith. "Abraham believed God, and it was 
reckoned unto him for righteousness." (Gal. iii, 6.) 
But faith is the essential element in the Christian 
Church. Without it, there is no Christianity. It in- 
volves the idea of grace as opposed to the idea of law 
and works. Its object is Christ, through whom, by 
virtue of the atonement, the grace comes. Then, 
again, the object of Abraham's faith was Christ, for 
Christ himself says, "Abraham saw my day, and was 
glad." No one can enter the Church of Christ with- 
out faith, and therefore can not be counted as the 
seed of Abraham. But why not, if the Church of the 
Patriarch and the Church in New Testament dispen- 
sation are different? And on the contrary, how is it 



UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 151 

that "they which are of faith, the same are the chil- 
dren of Abraham," and " they which be of faith are 
blessed with faithful Abraham?" 

Tins covenant was an everlasting covenant. It was 
not made to be broken. The gifts of God are with- 
out repentance. The nature of the promise contained 
in the covenant demonstrates its perpetuity. The 
words of the Lord in the record are sufficient proof; 
but since much discussion has arisen concerning the 
meaning of the term " everlasting," the question may 
be otherwise laid to rest by recalling the apostolic 
argument in Galatians iii. An examination of that 
argument will show that it rests, for its validity, 
upon the perpetuity of the covenant. If this is not 
what the Apostle is asserting, we shall look in vain 
for the reason why the Apostle affirms the inability of 
the Sinaitic law to abrogate that covenant, or why he 
should refer to the annulling of the covenant at all. 
He says : " Brethren, I speak after the manner of 
men. Though it be but a man's covenant, yet, if it 
be confirmed, no man disannulleth or addeth thereto. 
Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises 
made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; 
but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ. And 
this I say, That the covenant that was confirmed be- 
fore of God in Christ, the law which was four hun- 
dred and thirty years after can not disannul, that it 
should make the promise of none effect." Our God 
never violated a pledge. He confirmed the covenant 
with an oath, and it remains to this day. The first 
promise was made in Eden; the promise to Abra- 
ham was a reaffirmation of that, and the beginning 



152 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

of the historical process for its fulfillment. It was 
the first stage in the unfolding of the Divine plan, 
the first day in the genesis of the new creation. The 
law was " added because of transgression till the seed 
should come to whom the promise was made." (Gal. 
iii, 19.) From the giving of this law on Sinai, going 
backward to the covenant with Abraham (Gen. xii), 
is exactly four hundred and thirty years, and there- 
fore it is the Abrahamic Covenant, which could not 
be annulled by the law. 

The Church of God, founded in the family of Abra- 
ham, was never destroyed. Through all the checkered 
ages of Israel's history it persisted until, surviving 
all changes, social, political, and religious, it finally 
shone out in the Messianic glory of the New Testa- 
ment period. After the death of Abraham, the prom- 
ise is conserved in Isaac and Jacob, who walked in 
the steps of their fathers. (Rom. iv, 12.) In the 
furnace of Egypt, the chosen is watched over till the 
hour of deliverance. " When Israel was a child, then 
I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt." (Hosea 
xi, 1.) At the giving of the law, the idea of Divine 
selection is emphasized, and the spiritual purpose of 
that selection : " Ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto 
me above all people, for all the earth is mine, and ye 
shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and a holy 
nation." From the giving of the law the national 
consciousness is, that it is called to political existence 
for a religious purpose, and so strongly was this idea 
developed in Israel, that it seems as if the whole na- 
tion constituted the Church of God. But "all are 
not Israel which are of Israel, neither because they 



UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 153 

are Abraham's seed are they all children." Neverthe- 
less, within the political nation was the spiritual Israel. 
In the wilderness, while obeying Jehovah, they were 
the " Church " (Acts vii, 38), and they all drank of 
the spiritual Rock, which was Christ. (1 Cor. x, 4.) 
In these affirmations of Stephen and Paul is involved 
the fact that they exercised faith, the religious char- 
acteristics of their father Abraham, and the distin- 
guishing trait of every true child of Abraham. Faith 
is found everywhere in the Old Testament. The 
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, after defining 
faith, says that " by faith the elders obtained a good 
report ;" that the men of God " all died in faith, not 
having received the promises, but having seen them 
afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced 
them, and confessed that they were strangers and pil- 
grims on the earth." The list is carried up through 
all the stages of Israel's history, and not only are the 
rulers and heroes of Israel mentioned as being men of 
faith, whereby the Church might seem to be limited 
to a few individuals scattered through long periods, 
and therefore destroying the idea of the perpetuity 
of the Church established in Abraham's family, but 
faith is affirmed of the common people (vs. 35-38) 
who were loyal to God. "And these all having ob- 
tained a good report through faith, received not the 
promise, God having provided some better thing for us, 
that they, without us, should not be made perfect " The 
eleventh chapter of Hebrews is a complete demon- 
stration of the perpetuity of the Church. 

When national apostasy manifests itself, God raises 
up the prophets, who appeal to the true Israel and 



154 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

keep alive the flickering flame of personal righteous- 
ness by faith. (Isa. vii, 9 ; xxx, 15 ; comp. viii, 17 ; 
Jer. xviii, 5; Hab. ii, 4.) "The just shall live by 
his faith. " The Psalms are not simply the outbursts 
of individual piety ; they are the reflection of the ex- 
perience of God's people, the concentrated voice of the 
spiritual Israel. At times this true Israel is in a 
hopeless minority, as in the days of Isaiah, Jeremiah, 
and Elijah, when it was reduced to a mere " remnant ;" 
but in the darkest periods there were those who had 
not bowed the knee to Baal. To human eye the 
Church of God is extinct, but to the eye of Jehovah it is 
a seed in the winter field, waiting the coming of spring. 
The perpetuity of this Church may also be shown 
from prophecy. The prophets were all members 
of the household of faith. Instead of prophesy 
ing the overthrow of that Church, they all affirm its 
spiritual nature and its everlasting continuance, em- 
phasizing the inner life more than the external, the 
spiritual rather than the ritual. The Church of the 
future is always depicted as a continuation of the 
Church then existing. Zion is to be enlarged; she 
will embrace all nations ; but it is the Zion then exist- 
ing. The sublime prophecies of Isaiah xliii, 1-7 ; 
xiv, 1-5; xlix, 18-23; li, 2-6; lii, 9, 10, and the va- 
rious prophecies in Jeremiah and the minor prophets, 
might be quoted in proof, but a full exposition of 
them would require a volume. The latter portion of 
Isaiah's prophecies, however, should be constantly 
borne in mind, since it bears so directly upon this 
particular thought. "Zion said, The Lord hath for- 
saken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a 



UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 155 

woman forget her sucking child, that she should not 
have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they 
may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have 
graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls 
are continually before me. . . . Lift up thine eyes 
round about, and behold : all these gather themselves 
together, and come to thee. As I live, saith the Lord, 
thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all, as with an 
ornament, and bind them on thee, as a bride doeth. 
For thy waste and thy desolate places, and the land 
of thy destruction, shall even now be too narrow by 
reason of the inhabitants, and they that swallowed 
thee up shall be far away. The children which thou 
shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say 
again in thine ears, The place is too strait for me : 
give place to me that I may dwell. Then shalt thou 
say in thine heart, Who hath begotten me these, see- 
ing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a cap- 
tive, and removing to and fro? and who hath brought 
up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where 
had they been ? Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I 
will lift up my hand to the Gentiles, and set up my 
standard to the people : and they shall bring thy sons 
in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon 
their shoulders." (Isaiah xlix, 14-22.) In chapter liv 
he again prophesies of the then existing Zion : " En- 
large the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth 
the curtains of thine habitations : spare not, lengthen 
thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes ; for thou shalt 
break forth on the right hand and on the left; and 
thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles." Some few pas- 
sages in the prophecies have been interpreted in op- 



156 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

position to our position; such as Daniel ii, 44, and 
Amos ix, 11. But those who employ these Scriptures 
in the manner indicated, read into them what they 
force out of them. When the prophet says that "in 
the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set 
up a kingdom," it is purely arbitrary to suppose that 
that kingdom will have laws different, and subjects 
different, from the real kingdom which was never to be 
destroyed. The kingdom to be set up is put in 
contrast to the world kingdoms, and not to the spiritual 
kingdom of God already existing ; and, though destined 
to eclipse, yet also destined to universal sway. In 
Amos ix, 11, it is said: "In that day will I raise up 
the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up 
the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, 
and I will build it as in days of old." This proph- 
ecy, and that above quoted from Daniel, doubtless 
refer to the same event. In Acts xv, 14-16, James 
applies this prophecy of Amos to the upbuilding of the 
New Testament Charch: "Simeon had declared how 
God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of 
them a people for his name. And to this agree the 
words of the prophets ; as it is written, After this I will 
return, and will build again the tabernacle of David 
which is fallen down; and I will build the ruins 
thereof, and I will set it up." It is evident, then, 
that the apostles did not consider these Scriptures as 
declaring a totally different Church, tabernacle, or 
kingdom, from that which had fallen, for that which 
had fallen is that which is again set up. 

When we enter the New Testament, Judaism is 
presented to us as we have often seen it in the Old 



UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 157 

Testament. While outwardly the chosen of God, it has 
in reality lost the element of spirituality characteristic 
of the house of Jacob. It is no longer the bride of 
the Lord, but a secular power striving intensely for 
political existence by unrighteous methods, and there- 
fore on the low level of other world powers. It has 
the law, but that has become a mere mechanical sys- 
tem, a battle-ground for contending schools lacking 
the principle of spiritual life. It has a temple, but 
no shekinah ; sacrifices, but no repentance. The 
whole nation seems forsaken of God, sunk in national 
apostasy, reviving now and then in some short-lived 
paroxysm of conscience. 

But as in other days of Israel's degeneracy, there 
is within this outward politico-ecclesiasticism a 
true spiritual Israel which looked for the fulfillment 
of ancient promises. The Magnificat of Mary, as re- 
corded by Luke, gives utterance to this faith : " He 
hath holpen his servant Israel in remembrance of his 
mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and 
his seed for ever." In the song of Zacharias the 
same belief asserts itself and particularly the important 
fact that God still had a people who were called his 
own, and therefore constituted his Church. " Blessed 
be the Lord God of Israel, for he hath visited and re- 
deemed his people, and hath raised up an horn of sal- 
vation for us in the house of his servant David, as he 
spake by the mouth of his holy prophets which have 
been since the world began, that we should be saved 
from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate 
us; to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, 
and to remember his holy covenant ; the oath which 



158 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

he sware to our father Abraham." Afterwards at the 
presentation in the temple, Simeon bears unconscious 
testimony to the same fact. "And behold, there was 
a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and 
the same man was just and devout, waiting for the 
consolation of Israel." There were many others in 
Jerusalem looking for the same hope from the same 
spiritual stand-point: "And there was one Anna, a 
prophetess, . . . which departed not from the 
temple, but served God with fastings and prayers 
night and day. And she coming in that instant, 
gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of 
him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalevn." 
Omitting the proof from the events of Pentecost, 
as recorded in the Acts, and the testimony of Stephen, 
the Pauline Epistles may be cited as containing in 
fullest measure the teaching of inspiration. In Rom. 
ix, Paul says: "I say then, hath God cast away his 
people ? God forbid. For I am an Israelite of the 
seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath 
not cast away his people whom he foreknew. Note 
ye not what the Scripture saith of Elias ? how that he 
maketh intercession to God against Israel, saying, 
Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down 
thy altars, and I am left alone and they seek my life. 
But what saith the answer of God unto him ? I have 
reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not 
bowed the knee to Baal; even so, then, at this present 
time, also there is a remnant according to the elec- 
tion of grace." But what is this " remnant " other 
than the true Israel, which is itself a continuation of 
the Israel of God running back to Abraham? 



UNITY OF THE CHURCH. 159 

If more argument were needed, the Apostle fur- 
nishes abundant proof in the succeeding verses of the 
same chapter. Having doubtless in mind the words 
of Jeremiah concerning Israel, "The Lord called 
thy name a green olive-tree" (chapter xi, 16); and 
of Hosea (chapter xiv, 6), "His branches shall 
spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive-tree;" 
the Apostle sets forth the Church of the Israelites as 
an olive-tree, the "natural branches" of which are 
the unbelieving Jews. These branches are " broken 
off," and the believing Gentiles are "grafted" into it, 
into which God is also able, he says, to graft the un- 
believing Jews who are broken off. The Church of 
Christ, then, must be one with the Church of the Old 
Testament, which is the " good olive-tree," the Jew's 
"own olive-tree " in the apostle's argument. 

In the Epistle to the Ephesians the same doctrine 
is taught : " Wherefore remember, that ye being in 
time past Gentiles in the flesh who are called uncir- 
cumcision by that which is called the circumcision in 
the flesh made by hands; that at that time ye were 
aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers 
from the covenants of promise, having no hope and 
without God in the world. But now, in Christ Jesus, 
ye, who sometime were far off, are made nigh by 
the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath 
made both one, and hath broken down the middle 
wall of partition between us ; having abolished in his 
flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments con- 
tained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain 
one new man, so making peace; and that he migbt rec- 
oncile both unto God in one body by the cross, 

14 



160 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

having slain the enmity thereby; and came and 
preached peace to yon which were afar off, and to 
them that were nigh. For through him we both have 
access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now, therefore, 
ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow- 
citizens with the saints and of the household of God, 
and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and 
prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner- 
stone." 

Such, in briefest outline, are the various proofs for 
the unity of the Church of God under the two dispen- 
sations. To deny this unity is to affirm that the 
patriarchs, the prophets, the priests, holy kings, and 
servants of God in all centuries of Jewish history 
were aliens to the true Israel, the Church of God aud 
of his Anointed, and knew nothing of saving faith in 
the coming Kedeemer. This, however, is contradicted 
by the Apostle, who founds the Church of Christ upon 
the Apostles and prophets, both united or held together 
in unity by Jesus Christ, the chief corner-stone. 



THE OLD TESTAMENT CHURCH, 161 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE POSITION OF CHILDREN IN THE OLD TESTA- 
MENT CHURCH. 

IN no other sacred books of the world's religions, 
and therefore in no other religion than that of the 
Bible, is there such prominence given to childhood as 
is given in the Holy Scriptures. In the earliest of 
these Books, as if laying the foundation of the secular 
and spiritual prosperity of the Hebrew race, special 
regard is had for children, and precepts are laid down 
which govern their whole period from the day of 
birth till they become the " sons of the covenant.' 7 
In Genesis i, 28, and thence onward to the closing 
verses of Malachi, the possession of children is con- 
sidered a blessing from Jehovah. The first mother 
uttered that belief (Gen. iv, 1) : "I have gotten a 
man from the Lord." It is God who appointed her 
in Seth "another seed instead of Abel" (iv, 25). 
He who will bless Sara is God. (Gen. xvii, 16.) It 
is- God who makes a mother fruitful or barren (xxix, 
31 ; xxx, 2) ; for the reason that childlessness is re- 
garded as the worst calamity to a A ouse; unfruitf ill- 
ness is dishonorable to a woman (Gen. xxx, 23), and 
is looked upon as a token, in some measure, of the 
Divine anger (xvi, 2). Hence the practices of hea- 
thenism toward children are condemned by the letter 
and spirit of all Hebraic laws concerning children. 



162 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

The first tiling of religious importance to the 
child was his reception of the rite of circumcision. 
Circumcision was the divinely established sign or 
token of the Abrahamic Covenant. While this rite 
may have been practiced by other peoples prior to, or 
contemporaneously with, its use among the Israelites, 
its first appearance in the Old Testament is in con- 
nection with the revelation of God to Abraham in 
all the majesty of power and holiness. " The Lord 
appeared to Abraham, and said unto him, I am God 
Almighty [El-Shaddai] ; walk before me and be thou 
perfect, and I will make my covenant between me 
and thee." (Gen. xvii, 1, 2.) In the succeeding 
verses the promises follow, and then is established, or 
instituted, the token of the covenant made. " This is 
my covenant which ye shall keep, between me and 
thee, and thy seed after thee. Every man-child 
among you shall be circumcised. ... It shall be 
a token of the covenant betwixt me and you. . . . 
My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting 
covenant. And the uncircumcised man-child, whose 
flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall 
be cut off from his people; he hath broken my cove- 
nant." (Gen. xvii, 10-14.) 

It is sometimes affirmed that this rite was the seal 
of a national, a temporal covenant, and not of a cove- 
nant of grace. If that were true the grace covenant 
made with Abraham would have no outward sign. 
But again, the objection is nullified by the facts of 
sacred history. Ishmael and his sons were circum- 
cised, but neither he nor they obtained an inheritance 
in the Promised Land. Esau and his children re- 



THE OLD TESTAMENT CHURCH. 163 

ceived the seal also, but they inherited no portion of 
Canaan. If, now, these descendants of Abraham re- 
ceived the sign of the covenant, which was wholly 
temporal in its nature, and therefore guaranteed to 
those entering it temporal possessions, how shall their 
exclusion from its blessings and the failure of the 
guarantee in this case be explained? By such in- 
quiries as these, which may be multiplied, the fact is 
made very clear that, while the covenant secured 
national blessings, it was primarily and essentially 
spiritual in its design. The author of the Epistle to 
the Hebrews teaches this (xi, 13-16), and especially 
in the statement (vs. 9, 10) that the land of Canaan 
was not the sole hope of the patriarchs, since they 
"looked for a city which hath foundations, whose 
builder and maker is God." 

The religious import of circumcision is seen in 
that it was the ordinance of admission to the household 
of faith .* It was "the covenant in the flesh for an 
everlasting covenant" (Gen. xvii, 12), and must be 
performed on every male child born in the house or 
bought with money. (Vs. 13.) If it was neglected 
in the case of any child, he could not be numbered 
with the people of God, since he formed no part of 
the family with whom the covenant was made; "that 
soul shall be cut off from his people ; he hath broken 

* "Die Beschneidung ist in Israel die Weihe des Menschen 
zam Eintritt in das heilige Volk Jehove's. An dem Gliede, wo- 
rauf die Lebensfortpflanzung ruht und welchem heilige Ehr- 
furcht gezollt ward, wird diese blutige Eeinigung vollzogen, 
zuin Zeichen, dass die Fortpflanzung des ganzen Volks Gott 
geweiht werde." (Alttestament. Theol., 177; Dr. Herman 
Schultz, fourth Ed.) 



164 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

my covenant." (Vs. 14.) To be cut off from his 
people signified absolute exclusion from the congrega- 
tion, or Church of Israel, and all the blessings and 
privileges, spiritual and temporal, attached to or im- 
plied therein. (Ex. xii, 15 ; xxx, 33, 38 ; Lev. vii, 20. 
21, 25, 27 ; xvii, 4, 9 ; xix, 8 ; Num. xv, 30 ; xix, 13.) 
In all probability this modified view of excision is 
wholly wrong, and there are not a few, of the highest 
scholarship, who regard this excision as penal in the 
extreme. Thus Oehler : " The punishment of death is 
attached, apparently, to a large number of crimes. It 
is prescribed, not only for the crime of murder, mal- 
treatment of parents, man-stealing (Ex. xxi, 12), 
adultery, incest, and other unnatural crimes, . . . 
but for overstepping certain fundamental ordinances of 
the theocracy — the law of circumcision (Gen. xvii, 14), 
the law of the passover (Ex. xii, 15, 19.) " (Old Test. 
Theol., p. 223.) The supposition, then, that one was 
born into the Israelitish Church is without valid 
grounds. The child was born into the nation, but 
since, in idea, the Church and State were one, he could 
not remain a citizen of the nation without becoming, 
at least outwardly in the flesh, a member of the 
Church. Nor, to carry out the thought, could he be- 
come a member of the invisible, spiritual Israel, with- 
out being circumcised in heart, of which the fleshly 
circumcision was the sign. 

Hence, circumcision was the symbol of the renewal 
and purification of the heart. This is seen in the 
phrase uncircumcision of heart frequently met with, 
and in the reiterated exhortations : " Circumcise there- 
fore the foreskin of your heart" (Deut. x, 16), " and 



THE OLD TESTAMENT CHURCH. 165 

the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the 
heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all 
thy heart and with all thy soul, that thou may est 
live." (Deut. x, 16.) 

Circumcision being an outward sign of inward 
holiness, it was at the same time the seal of the right- 
eousness of faith. (Rom. iv, 11-25.) The object of 
that faith was the gospel, which had been preached to 
Abraham. That gospel spoke of a Redeemer to come, 
of the spiritual blessings coming upon the infant seed 
thereby, and of the child's personal active interest in 
those blessings. Every male child carried in his flesh 
the sign of God's promises, and of the obedience which 
he owed to his God as a condition of receiving the 
blessings. It also reminded him that nature was im- 
pure, and could not beget its own redeemer, nor purify 
itself. True this rite was imposed upon an uncon- 
scious babe, who knew nothing of the obligations 
placed upon him. This same objection is made against 
infant baptism. But to such crudities no answer need 
be given. Besides the fact that they are a criticism 
upon the commandment and wisdom of the All-wise 
God, they are the immediate product of a state of 
mind, which, because of its essentially anarchic quality, 
is a menace to the well-being of society. It should 
be understood, once for all, that no one has the right 
to do wrong. And while the parent has no right to 
obligate his child to do a wrong thing, it is both his 
right and his duty to obligate him to do what is right, 
because it is right that the child should do what is right. 

This holy rite of circumcision the child received 
on the eighth day after birth. During the perform- 



166 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

ance he formally received his name (Luke i, 59 ; comp. 
Gen. xvii, 5 ff., with xxi, 3 f.), so that the first utter- 
ance of his name was mingled with the accents of prayer 
in a solemn rite ordained of God. Then the God of 
Israel was pledged to be a God to the child forever, 
and the child was pledged to obedience and a holy 
life. (Gen. xvii, 1.) When he was one month old he 
was brought, if a first-born, to the sanctuary and there 
redeemed — since all the first-born belonged to God in 
a particular sense — by the payment of five shekels of 
the sanctuary. His presentation and redemption were 
vicarious for all the other children born in the family, 
as the Levite tribe was a perpetual vicarious offering 
for all the first-born of Israel. In this act of presen- 
tation the child was offered as a living sacrifice, holy 
and acceptable unto God. In that act it was also set 
forth that he was indebted to God for his life and 
all its blessings ; and, finally, that he was God's 
property. 

As soon as the Hebrew boy was able to speak, he 
was taught verses of Holy Scripture and short prayers.* 
But it was not until the fifth or sixth year that formal 
instruction began. In the statutes for the government 
of the Hebrew people, Moses commands, "Only take 
heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou 
forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest 
they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life : 



* Paul the Apostle reminds Timothy " that from a child 
[brephos, infant] thou hast known the Holy Scriptures." (2 Tim. 
iii, 5.) Josephus says that " their [the Jews'] children learn 
their laws from, the first dawnings of sense a»d reason in 
them." 



THE OLD TESTAMENT CHURCH. 167 

but thou shalt teach them thy sons, and thy sons' sons." 

In the succeeding verse he calls to mind why God 

gathered the people at Horeb — " That they may learn 

to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the 

earth, and that they may teach their children." (Deut. 

iv, 9, 10.) So important was the position of childhood 

in the Old Testament Church that this commandment 

concerning religious instruction is again emphasized 

with particular additions, in Deut. vi, 6-9: "And 

these words which I command thee this day, shall be 

in thine heart. And thou shalt teach them diligently 

unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou 

sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the 

way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest 

up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine 

hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine 

eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of 

thy house, and on thy gates." 

The Divine solicitude for the religious culture of 

the Hebrew child can only be faintly apprehended in 

any Version. The original of " diligently " signifies 

to repeat a thing again and again continuously until 

one has permanently learned it and understood its 

purport. But this was not enough. Religion must 

be in the home, where the children grow, absorb, and 

receive their earliest and most lasting impressions. 

Hence the statutes of the Lord were to be topics 

of conversation, so that their spiritual and temporal 

meanings might be simplified, brought down to the 

comprehension of the child's understanding, and 

thereby enter into the fiber of his soul at the earliest 

dawning of reason : " Thou shalt talk of them when 

15 



168 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

thou sittest in thine house." Morning and evening the 
child would hear the Word of God and its explana- 
tions in the prayers and religious rites of the house- 
hold. On the hand and forehead of his father he 
would see the holy words. When he went out or 
came in he would see the statutes of Jehovah written 
on the door-posts of his house ; and all this that he 
might know and ever remember the words of the 
Lord, consider himself holy unto God, and transmit to 
his children what he had received from his father. 

At five years of age the Hebrew child began the 
study of the Bible, commencing with Leviticus, which 
contained the ordinances concerning sacrifices. From 
this, advance was made to the prophets, and finally to 
the Hagiographa. Every seven years the Law was 
publicly read at the Feast of Tabernacles (Deut. 
xxxi), at which the little children were to be present. 
Whether this statute became a dead-letter or not, and 
was only once observed in a space of five hundred 
years, as some think, matters little. Whatever may 
have been the facts in the case, we see clearly the 
command of God, and that little children were to be 
present at the ceremony. The Book of Proverbs is 
replete with precepts concerning the religious instruc- 
tion of children. Warnings are given to parents to lay 
the foundation of a religious life at the beginning of 
the child's days: "Train up a child in the way he 
should go, and when he is old he will not depart 
from it." The instinctive outgoings of his nature are 
to be watched, " whether his nature be pure and 
whether it be right" (xx, 1), and to all instruction in 
the Divine wisdom he must give an attentive ear, for 



THE OLD TESTAMENT CHURCH. 169 

a knowledge of that is an experience of the fear of 
the Lord. 

At twelve or thirteen years of age the boy became 
" a son of the commandment," or of " the Law." He 
was now for the first time subject to the whole Law, 
must observe all its ordinances, and therefore took 
part in all the solemn services of the sanctuary or 
temple. It was an eventful day to him and to the 
family when he entered the courts of the God of 
Jacob. As one of the people of God, he took part in 
all the sacred festivals, in the holy convocations, and 
pilgrimage feasts. For the first time he now assisted 
at the Passover, and partook of the paschal lamb, the 
meaning of which he had been taught years previously. 
(Ex. xii, 26, 27.) Dr. Gill, a Baptist and eminent 
Rabbinic scholar, observes in his notes on Luke ii, 42 : 
" According to the maxims of the Jews, persons were 
not obliged to the duties of the law, or subject to the 
penalties of it in case of non-performance, until they 
were: A female, at the age of twelve years and one 
day ; and a male, at the age of thirteen years and one 
day. They were not reckoned adult Church members 
till then ; nor then, either, unless worthy persons ; for 
so it is said : ' He that is worthy is called, at thirteen 
years of age, a son of the congregation of Israel ; ? that 
is, a member of the Church." Bloomfield (Critical 
Digest, Luke ii, 42) says: "The custom was not to 
take them [children] to the Passover, until they should 
have attained the years of puberty, a period which the 
Rabbins tell us was fixed at the twelfth year, when 
they were held amenable to the law, and were called 
Sons of Precept. Then were they also introduced 



170 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

into the Church, initiated into its doctrines and cere- 
monies, and consequently were taken by their relations 
to Jerusalem at the festivals." In Poole's Synop. 
Crit. (Ex. xii, 26) : " Children, at the age of twelve 
years, were brought by their parents to the temple ; 
and from that time they began to eat of the Passover 
and other sacrifices." Rosen muller and Kuinoel and 
other critics, English and foreign, have similar notes. 
Joseph us, in the " Antiquities," says : " The law for- 
bids the son to eat of the sacrifice before he has come 
to the temple." (Book IV, chap, xvi, sec. 30.) 

Thus we see the care for childhood in the Old Tes- 
tament, and the relation which children sustained to 
the Church. From the beginning they were conse- 
crated to God, nurtured in his holy law, regarded as 
members of the household of faith, and prepared for 
public and personal acceptance of the obligations laid 
upon them in circumcision. Having arrived at the 
proper age when they could discern, in some degree, 
the profound symbolisms of religion, they became re- 
sponsible, full members of the Church of God. Their 
probation was over; they could now enter the courts 
of the Lord with gladness, offer sacrifice, eat the 
Passover, chant with their parents and friends gath- 
ered at the feasts the glorious Hallel Psalms, and re- 
joice in the Coming One, the Messiah of Israel. 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH. 171 



CHAPTER IX. 

CHILDREN IN THE CHURCH OF THE NEW TES- 
TAMENT. 

THE MOTHER CHURCH AT JERUSALEM. 

IN previous chapters we have shown the condition 
of childhood in the Roman Empire when Chris- 
tianity began its beneficent career. The careful student 
will recall the faithful picture there given, in order to 
pursue an intelligent study of the same subject in the 
writings of the New Testament. It is a prime canon 
in historical criticism applied, that he only who is 
imbued with the literary, social, philosophical, and 
religious spirit of an age, can understand that age. 
He only, therefore, who can project himself into the 
life of the New Testament period, and can live, think, 
and act in turn in Jerusalem, in Ephesus, in Antioch, 
and in the Imperial Capital, can hope to understand 
sympathetically the full significance of much that is 
historical in the Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline 
Epistles, concerning the early struggles of the Church 
with Paganism, Judaism, and the pervasive spirit of 
Orientalism. 

Brought by the historic spirit into rapport with 
New Testament times, we may ask, without servility 
to preconceived judgments, what was the effect of the 
degraded ideas relative to childhood in heathenism 
upon Apostolic teaching and Church practice concern- 



172 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

ing children? Knowing the character of Chris- 
tianity from the teachings of Christ Jesus, have we 
not a presumptive right to investigate the New Testa- 
ment records with the expectancy of there finding 
statements indicating something more than heathen 
interest in the ethical and religious welfare of chil- 
dren? Heathenism, it will be remembered, valued 
the child for what he might become; Christianity 
considered him for what he was. Further, it has 
been shown that the Church in the age immediately 
after the Apostles manifested especial interest in 
children, and that finally Christian teaching modified 
the Imperial laws concerning them. The greatest 
teachers and writers of the Church vigorously attacked 
the inhumanity of heathenism toward the little ones 
and pleaded for their religious care as the purchase 
of Christ. On what grounds, we may ask, did the 
Church do this? Was this interest a mere develop- 
ment or corollary of Christian sentiment? This was 
the age of Justin Martyr, who testifies that there were 
those then in the Church sixty and seventy years old 
who were made disciples to Christ in their childhood. 
Justin wrote about the year 142 A. D. ; sixty or 
seventy years from that date carries us into the middle 
of the Apostolic days, midway between the death of 
John (102 A. D.) and the extraordinary manifesta- 
tions of Pentecost when the Church was formally 
opened. It was the age of Clemens Romanus, of 
Ignatius, of Polycarp, the disciple and friend of the 
holy John. The idea, therefore, that the Churches of 
that early day, scattered throughout the vast distances 
of *he Roman Empire, simultaneously introduced 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH. 173 

child-membership, can not be seriously considered. 
Wherever Origen traveled in this same period, he 
found the same Church relation of children, and has 
left it on record that it was received from the Apostles, 
the only source indeed from which it could have 
come. 

Again, to apprehend this matter clearly, we may 
approach the subject from another stand-point, and one 
entirely new. Let us suppose, for instance, that the 
Acts of the Apostles, which contains much concerning 
the founding of the Church, was lost — what conclusion 
relative to the position of children in the New Testa- 
ment Church would be reached from a study of the 
Pauline theology ? The Epistles to the Romans and 
to the Galatians teach plainly the salvation of the 
human race in infancy through the atonement; that 
the gospel was preached to Abraham ; that the bless- 
ings of the covenant made with him have come upon 
the Gentiles; that the Church of Christ is one with 
the Church of the Old Testament, and that all who 
are justified in Christ (and certainly children are) are 
of the seed of Abraham as truly as were Isaac and 
Jacob. Calling these facts into view, and remember- 
ing at the same moment that Paul was fully acquainted 
with the teachings of our Lord, touching the moral 
character of little children and the relation which 
they sustained to the kingdom of God, by what ten- 
able hypothesis could the exclusion of believers' 
children from the Church of Christ be maintained? 
No one in the exercise of a sound critical judgment 
would be bold enough to conclude that the teachings 
of the Apostles were at variance with the practice of 



174 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

the Churches they had founded. Certainly no one 
ever did so conclude for a thousand years, until the 
rise of the semi-Manichean sects of the twelfth cen- 
tury and the furious Anabaptists of the Reformation 
period. 

The history of the planting of the Church, and of 
the conversion of families as given in the Acts, can 
be understood only by reference to the teachings of 
the Apostles as set forth in their Epistles. It must be 
insisted upon, therefore, that history and doctrine be 
studied together; and, as a preliminary fact, that the 
practices of the early Churches in relation to the chil- 
dren of believers were not antagonistic to the doc- 
trinal teachings of the Apostles. We may now study 
the teachings of the days of Pentecost. 

Acts ii, 38, 39 : 
" For the promise is to you, and to your children. " 

This is that part of Peter's discourse which bears 
directly on the membership of children. The audience 
were Jews and proselytes, " devout men out of every 
nation under heaven," and therefore understood the 
import of the remarkable announcement of Peter con- 
cerning Christ as the long-expected Messiah and his 
glorious kingdom. It is necessary to study this au- 
dience closely from the religious stand-point, for 
three thousand of them that day accepted the proffered 
Christ, and were added to the Christian Church. 

I. The Jews. The Jewish element fully appre- 
hended the Apostolic teaching ; for the Messiah had 
been, from the beginning, the hope of Israel. They 
were also acquainted with the various views held in 
Judaism concerning the Messiah's kingdom ; its scope 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH. 175 

and relation to the ancient theocracy of their fathers. 
They could not have dreamed, and it was certainly 
antagonistic to all of their teachings, Scriptural and 
Rabbinic, that with the coming of their own Messiah, 
their religious blessings and privileges would be abol- 
ished, or even abridged. Every Jew in that assembly, 
and among the three thousand that day converted, 
knew that his children were included with him in 
the covenant made with Abraham; that they were 
circumcised under the solemn pledge, " I will be a 
God to. thee and thy seed," and that that pledge had 
not yet been revoked; that he himself had been by 
this God-ordained rite numbered with the people of 
God in his infancy, and when of age had been form- 
ally received into full membership in the Kahal of 
Israel. In a previous chapter the position of chil- 
dren in the Old Testament Church has been fully 
treated. The facts there adduced were not to him a 
mere theory, but a joyful and blessed experience, for 
which he was 'ever piously thankful and nationally 
proud. It never could have presented itself to those 
Jews then listening to Peter, that his teaching that 
day was the death-knell of their children's relation to 
the Church of the living God, their God. That would 
have been to them far other than good tidings, and, 
in the nature of things, must have provoked antago- 
nistic views based on Old Testament grounds. Be- 
sides the express commands of God, delivered under 
the most awful circumstances, and enforced by fear- 
ful threatenings, the laws and ordinances of their 
religion had declared the sacred relation of the He- 
brew child to the people of Jehovah. The prophet, 



176 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

who was ever before them when they read of the fall 
of Jerusalem, had promised that, in the brighter day 
of the future, " their children also should be as afore- 
time." (Jer. xxx, 20.) Moreover — and this should 
be specially noted — 'they heard nothing in the sermon 
to the effect that the Church was for adults only. 
The declaration of the Apostle leads directly to the 
opposite conclusion. Peter was a Jew, addressing 
Jews. He had not, nor had any of the disciples, yet 
abandoned the services of the temple, or the pure 
teachings of Judaism. To read, then, into this nar- 
rative or to inject into the religious feelings, aspira- 
tions, and traditions of the Hebrews of that day the 
Anabaptist notions of modern times, is utterly at 
variance with the historic spirit. 

II. The second element of that audience were the 
proselytes. A proselyte was one who had forsaken 
the worship of heathenism, and had turned to the 
true and living God, as revealed in the teachings of 
Judaism. In the religious economy of the Hebrews 
provision was made, from the beginning, for the 
" stranger" (G<?r). Abraham was commanded to cir- 
cumcise, not only his own children, but all who were 
in any sense his : " He that is born in thy house, or 
bought with money of any stranger, which is not of 
thy seed, must needs be circumcised, and my covenant 
shall be in thy flesh for an everlasting covenant. . . . 
In the self-same day was Abraham" circumcised, and 
Ishmael, his son, and all the men of his house; those 
born in the house, and those bought with money of 
the stranger, were circumcised with him." (Gen. xvii, 
12 f., 26 ff.) When the ordinance of the Passover 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH. 177 

was instituted in Egypt, the " Ger " was given a place, 
and thereafter held under the same statutes as the 
born Hebrew. " Whosoever eateth that which is leav- 
ened, that soul shall be cut off from the congregation 
[Edali\ of Israel, whether he be a sojourner [Ger] or 
one that is born in the land." (Gen. xii, 19, 40-49 ; 
Num. ix, 14; xv, 15, 16.) This Ger, stranger, or 
proselyte enters, by command of God, like the lineal 
descendants of Abraham, into covenant relation with 
Jehovah. In addition to the covenant made at Horeb, 
there is this other in Deuteronomy xxiv, 10 ff.: " Ye 
stand this day before the Lord your God ; your cap- 
tains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, 
with all the men of Israel, your little ones, your wives, 
and thy stranger \_Ger~\ that is in thy camp, from the 
hewer of thy wood to the drawer of thy water, that 
they shouldest enter into covenant with the Lord thy 
God, and unto his oath which the Lord thy God 
maketh with thee this day." In the thirty-third 
chapter a similar command is given. Numerous other 
passages, illustrating the proselyte's position in the 
Hebrew economy, may be consulted (Ex. xxii, 21; 
xxiii, 12; Lev. xix, 10, 33; Deut. x, 8; xiv, 29; 
xxiv, 17; xxvi, 12; Ps. xciv, 5; cxv, 9-14; Isa. ii, 
2-4; lvi, 3, 6-8, et al; Jer. vii, 6 ; xxii, 3 ; Ezek.xxii, 7, 
29 ; xlii, 22 ; Micahiv, 1, 2 ; Zech. vii, 10 ; Mai. iii, 5.) 
Of these proselytes, there were (a) the proselyte 
of the gate — Ger-ha-shaar ; (6) the sojourner — Ger 
Tosbacli ; (c) the proselyte of the covenant — Ger hab- 
berith; (d) and the proselyte of righteousness — Ger 
hatstsedeq. (Edersheim, Vol. II, ap. Hertzog Real 
Ency., Proselyte.) These several kinds are not men- 



178 CHRIS TIANIT Y AND CHIL DHO OD. 

tioned in the New Testament; but, with the exception, 
perhaps, of the sojourners, are spoken of under the 
general term "proselytes" (Acts ii, 10); " religious 
men " (vs. 5) ; " devout " (Acts xiii, 5 f.) ; " men who 
fear God" (Acts xiii, 16.) However, a distinction 
was made in New Testament times between Prose- 
lytes of the Gate and Proselytes of Righteousness. 
Cornelius, the centurion, is called a " devout man," 
yet he is also termed a " Gentile," and is said to have 
been one of the uncircumcised. (Acts xi, 3 ; Olsh. 
Com. in loo.; Neander, Plant, and Train., p. 70.) So, 
also, the "devout proselytes" in the synagogue 
of Antioch, in Pisidia, are called Gentiles. In the 
synagogue at Iconium there was a great multitude of 
Jews and also of the Greeks who believed. Here 
Greeks are called Gentiles, and were those whom 
the Jews stirred up against the Apostles. (Acts xiv, 
1-5.) 

The Proselytes of the Gate were those who had 
abandoned polytheism for Judaism. They attended 
the services of the synagogue, gave alms, read the 
Scriptures, and contributed of their means to the re- 
quirements of the sanctuary. Nevertheless, they did 
not enter into covenant with God. They were ac- 
counted Levitically unclean, and were not permitted 
to come only into the outer court of the temple (at- 
rium Gentilum), the court of the Gentiles, which was 
separated from the inner court by a wall. (See Eph. 
ii, 14; also, Josephus, B. J., v, 52; Tacitus, Hist., v, 
8.) They were not circumcised, nor baptized, or 
washed, as tabillah really means, and were not there- 
fore in legal relation to the Mosaic cult. 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH. 179 

The Proselytes of Righteousness were those who 
had fully embraced the tenets of Judaism, and were 
imbued with its religious spirit. They differed in no 
respect, as Justin Martyr said, from one that was born 
in the land. When a Gentile became such a proselyte, 
he brought his entire family with him, otherwise his 
conversion to Judaism would have been regarded 
with a suspicious watchfulness. He was first instructed 
in the Law, and taught its obligations ; was shown how 
difficult was the task before him ; what he must en- 
dure, as one of God's people; and all this, that he 
might be persuaded of the reality of the convictions 
moving him. After this formal instruction, he was 
circumcised, and a new name given him. It was im- 
possible for one to become a Proselyte of Righteous- 
ness without circumcision. This was a fundamental 
institute of the law. " One ordinance shall be both 
for you of the congregation (KahaT), and also for the 
stranger (Ger) that sojourneth with you; an ordi- 
nance forever throughout your generations. As ye 
are, so shall the stranger be before the Lord. One 
law and one manner shall be for you and for the 
stranger with you." (Num. xv, 15 ff.) After cir- 
cumcision, the proselyte was washed, completely im- 
mersed in water. When he arose from the water he 
was said to be a new man ; he was regarded as being 
" born again." 

Children born after the parents were made prose- 
lytes were not baptized because they were " born in 
holiness" (Vebam., 78), though, of course, they were 
circumcised. But all children, born before the parents 
became proselytes, were baptized. The children of a 



180 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

Jewess or of a proselyte were regarded as Jews, even 
if the baptism of the father was doubtful. 

In the interest of dogma it has been maintained 
that proselyte baptism was not practiced in the days 
of Christ, in connection with circumcision. It is a 
fundamental necessity, if possible, to do away with this 
baptism on the part of those who deny infant baptism 
to have been of apostolic date. But after all that has 
been written on the subject since the seventeenth cen- 
tury, the fact of proselyte baptism in the time of 
Christ is accepted by the best Biblical scholarship of 
modern times. Edersheim says, " That baptism was 
absolutely necessary to make a proselyte, is so fre- 
quently stated as not to be disputed;" and gives Rab- 
binic authorities of the statement. Finally he says: 
"If a Jew who had become Levitically unclean re- 
quired immersion, it is difficult to suppose that a 
heathen would have been admitted to all the services 
of the sanctuary without a similar purification. But 
we have also positive testimony (which the objections 
of Winer, Heil, and Leyrer, in my opinion, do not in- 
validate) that the baptism of proselytes existed in the 
time of Hillel and Shammai. For, whereas the School 
of Shammai is said to have allowed a proselyte who 
was circumcised on the eve of the Passover, to par- 
take, after baptism, of the Passover, the School of 
Hillel forbade it. This controversy must be regarded 
as proving that at that time (previous to Christ) the 
baptism of proselytes was customary." The learned 
author gives no reference or hint as to the source of 
his information, as he usually does when dealing with 
Rabbinic matters, which, had he done, would have 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH. 181 

saved weeks of laborious search. I have found his 
authority, however, and reproduce it here because of 
its importance in putting to rest the question in 
dispute. 



HD3 yyyi T\)njp ij 
Vrn rrai an? 1 ? inoa na 



Latin Translation (Surren- 
husius). — Aliengia qui f actus 
est proselytus vesperi Sabbathi, 
schola Shaniai dicit, immerget 
se, et coruedat Pascha suum 
vesperi. Schola Hilldis dicit, 
qui separat se a prseputio, est 
ut ille qui separat se a sepul- 
tura.* 

This, I think, must be the authority referred to : 
" The School of Shammai said that a stranger who 
became a proselyte on the eve of Sabbath, may im- 
merse himself, and eat the Passover that evening. 
The School of Hillel said, he who separates himself 
from the prepuce is as one who separates himself from 
a sepulcher;" that is, he is unclean until he washes 
himself. Maimonides in " Imri. Biah," c. 13, also says : 
" And so in all ages, when an Ethnic [Gentile] is 
willing to enter into covenant, and gather himself 
under the wings of the majesty of God, and take upon 
him the yoke of the law, he must be circumcised and 
baptized, and bring a sacrifice ; as it is written, ' As 
ye are, so shall the stranger be.' How are you? By 
circumcision and baptism and bringing a sacrifice, so 
likewise the stranger \_Ger, proselyte] through all gen- 
erations, by circumcision, and baptism, and bringing 
of a sacrifice." He also says that a proselyte under 



*The Mishna, De Paschate, Surrenhusius Folio, Vol. I, 
167, at top. 



182 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

• 

age — that is, twelve years and a day (girls, thirteen 
and a day) — is baptized as an infant; that is, by the 
assent or knowledge of the house or session of judg- 
ment. The Jerusalem Mishna and the Babylonian 
Mishna both mention the rules for the admission of 
girls under three years and a day as proselytes, 
so that children were received as proselytes. 

Such, then, with their religious background, were 
the audience to whom the Apostle announced: "The 
promise is to you and to your children." Certain 
writers affirm that this promise was not the promise 
made to Abraham, but the promise of the Holy 
Spirit made in the prophecy of Joel. Let this be 
granted. If, then, the gift of the Holy Ghost fitted 
those present and believing for membership in the 
Church — and it did — and since this same gift was 
come upon the children — " for the promise is unto you 
and your children " — by what method of interpretation 
are the children of the three thousand who were 
added to the Church that day to be excluded? Again, 
if they were excluded, it is extraordinary in the highest 
degree that such a tremendous revolution as their ex- 
clusion would be, could have occurred and not the 
slightest mention made of it in any Book of the New 
Testament. There were many minor changes made, 
and many incidents of a peculiar nature in the first 
days of the Church at Jerusalem, and the record is 
made. But here is a change of the most momentous 
character, one which destroys an institution older than 
the Mosaic law — an institution established by God 
himself in the house of Abraham, when he established 
the Church — that is, child-membership in his Church — 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH. 183 

and not a .single line is given to record the event, or 
that there was even an inquiry or protest on the part 
of either the Jews or the proselytes. Perhaps none 
of the three thousand had any children. 

But it is sometimes averred, apparently as a last ef- 
fort to destroy the force of arguments similar to the 
one employed, that the children referred to by the 
Apostle were the grown-up posterity of all who would 
become believers. This, [however, even if correct, 
which it is far from being, does not relieve the ques- 
tion. The exclusion of the infant posterity then ex- 
isting must be accounted for, sine? the children then 
living were in as much need of the divine promise as 
those who might be born in coming generations. 

Now, the proof that the children were included 
with their believing parents in Church membership 
on the Day of Pentecost is seen in what has already 
been said concerning Jewish and proselyte conditions 
of membership in the Old Testament Church, and also 
in the fact of the unity of the Old and New Testament 
Churches. Moreover, Peter was intensely Jewish, 
and endeavored to retain much of Judaism, while 
being loyal to the central facts of Christianity. This 
was true of all the other Apostles. The break had 
not yet come between Christianity and Judaism as a 
system ; nor did it occur for some years after. Those 
who believed in Christ still worshiped at proper times, 
like the Apostles, in the temple; and it had not yet 
entered into the thoughts of Jew or proselyte that 
in embracing the spiritual truths of the Old Testa- 
ment, as set forth by the Apostles, and in accepting 

Jesus of Nazareth as the Hope of Israel, he had by 

16 



184 . CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

that act excommunicated his family, who, up to that 
particular moment, were true believers in God, and ac- 
cepted by him. Too much emphasis can not be laid 
upon these facts. For, they being true, it is absurd 
beyond measure to imagine that these Jewish Chris- 
tians, who, as the Book of Acts shows, would not be- 
lieve that Gentiles could be admitted within the holy 
circle of Christianity without first being made Jews, 
would exclude their own children from the blessing 
which had been promised them in their father 
Abraham. Inasmuch, then, as it was a statute in 
Israel from the dawn of antiquity that children 
should be of the congregation of Israel; and also 
that God himself had instituted a rite which should 
be the sign of membership in that body; and, further, 
since the promises to Abraham were made in his flesh 
(the " covenant in his flesh ") and those same promises 
were pledged to every child circumcised in Israel 
from that day up to the very day of Pentecost, and 
since the Apostle announces no prohibition of the 
children coming with their parents, but, on the other 
hand, declares " the promise is unto you and to your 
children, " it surely devolves upon those who assert that 
the children were excluded on the day of Pentecost to 
produce certain and irrefragable proof of that as- 
sertion. 

As a matter of fact, not a single Hue in all literature 
of that age, or of the age succeeding, can be furnished. 

Acts xv. 

The history of the dissension concerning circum- 
cision, as recorded in Acts xv, goes far towards estab- 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH. 185 

lishing, as we think, the membership of children in 
the Church at Jerusalem. That Church, as we have 
seen, was composed of Jews and proselytes. The Jew- 
ish element still retained, along with their Christian 
belief, much that was of pure Hebraism. For it 
must be remembered that Judaism was not all in 
the Law. 

To the legal and priestly rule of the Hebrew con- 
science there had been added the prophetic or teaching 
(and therefore of believing) aspect of the Divine will. 
The prophets continually impressed the truth upon 
the people that the " sacrifices of God are a broken 
spirit ;" that " mercy is better than sacrifice." This 
revelation which God had made to Israel was ad- 
dressed to the heart, as Oehler says, even the revela- 
tion of the Law (Deut. vi, 6) ; for its central thought 
was supreme love to God. Hence the lawyer in the 
Gospel, w^hen asked by the Lord what the Law said 
concerning the true life, replied that the Law required 
him to love the Lord with all his heart, soul, mind, 
and strength. Abraham was accepted by faith, and 
his children received thereby the seal of the righteous- 
ness which he had obtained, and the sign of the cove- 
nant which he had entered into with God. Faith, like 
a silver thread, glistens through all the teachings of 
the Old Testament, and from a prophet of the Old 
Testament the Apostle quotes the w T ords which became 
the watchword of Pauline Christianity — "The just 
shall live by faith." Those Jews who accepted Jesus 
of Nazareth as the Messiah did not consider Chris- 
tianity as a new religion, as is clear from the remarks 
of James, the head of the Church at Jerrsalem, as re- 



186 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD, 

corded in this chapter.* They did not, therefore, re- 
gard it as antagonistic to the Law of Moses, but as 
fulfilling that law. Nor did they suppose that in ac- 
cepting Christ they rejected Moses. Christianity, to 
them, was the spiritual content of the Old Testament. 
Many of the Jews continued in the works of the law, 
without being bound by them; and all the Apostles 
exercised their liberty in this regard, as we find even 
Paul doing, in paying his vows, and Peter and John, 
going up to the temple at the hour of prayer. 

While this was the general belief and attitude of 
the Church at Jerusalem, there was in it a party who, 
not content with this free relation toward the law, 
went to extremes, and, burying the idea of justifica- 
tion by faith in Christ in their intense zeal for the 
perpetuity of Mosaism, demanded that the Gentiles 
should be circumcised; that is, become Jews, before 
they should be admitted to the Church. Without 
going further on this line, is it not clear that if 
Gentiles became Proselytes of Righteousness, their 
children would be also circumcised and baptized, and 
by that very fact also become, with their parents, mem- 
bers of the Church ? Let it be granted that these ex- 
tremists did not represent the mind of the Apostles 
gathered at the Jerusalem Church on the one question 
of compulsory circumcision, was there any Apostolic 
opposition to the Gentiles entering the Church by 



*This James the Less, or Younger, the son of Cleopas 
and Mary, and called the Lord's brother (Gal. i, 19), wasput;to 
death by the Pharisees, under the usurper Ananias, the high 
priest, between the death of Festus and the arrival of his suc- 
cessor, Albinus. 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH. 187 

baptism? But if the rite of circumcision was dis- 
allowed by the Apostolic Council, under which, and 
by virtue of which rite, the proselyte's children ac- 
companied him, since, as we have seen, he would hardly 
have been admitted as a Proselyte of Righteousness 
without them, did it follow that the children of the 
Gentiles were thereby cut off? From the nature of 
the case, the lack of circumcision would no more pre- 
vent the Gentile children from being added to the 
Church than it would the Gentile parent. 

Further, from the fact that the question of cir- 
cumcision was raised in the Church at all as a con- 
dition of membership, there is evidence that the chil- 
dren of the Gentiles — in a word, their households or 
families — were admitted. That the children of Jewish 
parents were admitted, can not be reasonably doubted ; 
for, as we have seen, the consecration of children, and 
numbering them as of God's people, was commanded 
in the law. Now, it ivas the observance of the law 
for ivhich the Church at Jerusalem contended. But 
would the whole Church contend for that which it had 
openly and on principle violated? Would they con- 
tend for child - membership, which circumcision 
meant, if they had excluded children? Every Jew 
in that Church knew that his children had been cir- 
cumcised, and every proselyte knew that his children 
had been circumcised and baptized like himself, before 
he became a Jew. This yoke the Jewish-Christians 
would put on the Gentiles; if put on, then their 
children of course would come in with them. But 
we can not see how, by its not being put upon them, 
their children were excluded. 



188 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

Acts xxi, 17-21. 

Several years after the events recorded in the last 
chapter cited, the Apostle Paul went up to Jerusalem 
to render an account of what God had done among 
the Gentiles. The report of his success had preceded 
him, as did also false reports concerning his teaching. 
This last was a matter of serious moment to the wel- 
fare of the Jerusalem Church. After the presbyters 
had glorified God for the success of his Word, James, 
the chief presbyter, laid the matter before the Apostle, 
saying : " Thou seest, brother, how many thousands 
of Jews there are which believe, and they are all 
zealous of the law; and they are informed of thee that 
thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gen- 
tiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to cir- 
cumcise their children, nor walk after the customs." 
Now it will be observed that Paul is not charged for 
opposing the rite of circumcision — this his accusers 
doubtless included in their accusation — but he is dis- 
tinctly charged with having opposed the circumcision 
of children. Now, being opposed to their circumcis- 
ion also meant being opposed to their Church member- 
ship; for without it, in the opinion of the Jerusalem 
Church, they could not be members of the Church. 
If then children of the thousands (myriads) who belonged 
to the Church in Jerusalem were not circumcised and 
icere not members of the Church with their parents, it is 
extraordinary that such excitement should have arisen 
when it was learned that the Apostle had been teach- 
ing against child-circumcision and child-membership. 
No reason can be assigned ; certainly they had none for 



THE NEW TESTAMENT CHURCH. 189 

bringing this grave charge against the Apostle, if they 
also had excluded children. Nor is there any reason 
why James and Paul should be solicitous to prove to 
the multitude that the accusation was false. The 
Apostle, acting on the advice of James, went through 
the rite of purification in the temple, as evidence that 
he himself " walked orderly and kept the law." 
(Verse 24.) Paul had never taught what he was 
charged with. Before this time the Epistles to the 
Romans and to the Galatians had been written, in 
which he taught the salvation of children through 
the blessings which had come from the atonement. 
He did not believe that circumcision availed anything 
in Christ Jesus, but that was very far from being 
equivalent to an exclusion of children from the 
Church of God. From a study of this event which 
might be extended much further, if it were deemed 
necessary, it is certain that children belonged with 
their parents to the Church at Jerusalem. It will be 
seen also that that Church, with James at their head, 
believed that the Christian Church was not something 
totally distinct from the Church of the Old Testa- 
ment. For, had they so believed or had been so 
taught, it is also inexplicable why they should hope to 
carry over into the new religion the distinctive badge, 
and covenant sign of the old. And, further, it is pass- 
ing strange why the Apostles should voluntarily de- 
ceive the people. For, if child-membership was con- 
trary to Christian faith and practice, why should 
James, the Lord's brother, be so solicitous as to ad- 
vise Paul to prove to the people that he was not op- 
posed to child-circumcision, which meant child-mem- 



190 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILHDOOD. 

bership in the Church, as it did from time immemorial, 
and was so understood at that time wherever the Old 
Testament was known? And again, why should Paul, 
the uncompromising leader of anti- Jewish Chris- 
tianity, why should James and all the elders of the 
Jerusalem Church, have engaged in what must in 
truth be called a system of deception, contemptible in 
its nature and destructive in its results — which the 
advice of James was, and the following of which on 
the part of Paul was — if they did not practice and 
cordially believe in the membership of children? 

James in his advice to Paul shows (1) that he was 
not opposed to Jewish customs and child-membership 
as it had always been held, and (2) that he did not 
believe Paul to hold or teach a contrary doctrine. 
By accepting the advice of James, on hearing the 
specific charge against him, Paul shows, and it is as 
clear to us as it was to James and to the elders of the 
Church, that he was in perfect accord with the views of 
the leaders of the Church at Jerusalem on that sub- 
ject. He did oppose the Jewish doctrine of circum- 
cision as a means of salvation, for he based that not 
on works, but on faith in Christ's atonement. This 
belief and teaching would do no violence to the the- 
ology of the Old Testament; for Abraham, as Paul 
had shown in his Epistles, and as was also well known 
to every Jew, was accounted righteous, not by reason 
of his works, but on account of his faith. But that 
was far different from excluding the children of be- 
lievers from the Church, for the existence and spread 
of which the Jewish nation had been elected, as the 
Apostle shows in the Epistle to the Romans. 



GENTILES AND THE DISPERSION. 191 



CHAPTER X. 

CHILDREN IN THE CHURCH OF THE NEW TES- 
TAMENT. 

(AMONG THE GENTILES, AND THE DISPERSION.) 

WHEN the Apostles began the missionary work 
which resulted in the establishment of Chris- 
tianity throughout Asia Minor, and, through the special 
labors of St. Paul, in the border-lands of Europe, the 
center of their operations in any given place was the 
Jewish synagogue, or the proseuche. Everywhere, 
fr^m Babylon to Rome, the Jews were dispersed, and 
in whatever place they settled, there they maintained 
a synagogue or a place of prayer. In the Acts of the 
Apostles we find Gentiles connected with these syna- 
gogues as proselytes. Into these sanctuaries the 
Apostles habitually went, and in the order of the 
service preached the startling truths of the gospel as 
their Master, Jesus, once did in the synagogue at 
Nazareth. Being Jews themselves, and having a 
common national feeling with and for those who 
were among the Gentiles, it was most natural that 
they should make the synagogue the starting-point 
of their labors. It also gave them the opportu- 
nity to preach to the Gentiles, those God-fearing 
men and women who had drawn nigh to the true 
God, as taught in Judaism. The result often was, 

that a synagogue became a Christiau Church, or that 

17 



192 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

a majority of the members withdrew and formed a 
Church; and men like Crispus became chief pastors, 
as they had before been chiefs of the synagogues. 
The transition from the synagogue to the Christian 
Church was made without any other change than 
the acceptance of Jesus of Nazareth as the promised 
Messiah of God, and what that implied. The position 
of the Hebrew Christian in the Church thus formed, 
is deserving of special attention. The Gentile Chris- 
tian, who also had been a member of the synagogue, 
and had learned all he knew of God from these same 
Hebrews, would still feel the need of instruction. It 
was no unimportant matter that the gospel was to 
the Jew first, and then to the Gentile. To the Jew 
had been committed the oracles of God ; and in a 
degree immeasurably above all other nations he was 
grounded in the truths, the hopes, and promises of 
his religion. He was connected by blood with the 
great family of Abraham, through whom these bless- 
ings had come upon the Gentiles ; he was in contact 
more or less with the land and the people where and 
among whom the mighty events of the Jewish Scrip- 
ture had taken place. In the nature of things, then, 
the Christian Jew would continue, by reason of these 
things, the leader in the newly formed Church. 

In all the Churches mentioned in the Acts, we 
find the Jew and the Gentile. In view of this, the 
same question which confronted us in the case of the 
Church at Jerusalem arises here. What was then 
said concerning the Jew and the Gentile proselyte, 
belongs here also. Every Jew in the synagogue had 
been circumcised, as had also his children, who, with 



GENTILES AND THE DISPERSION. 193 

him, were members of the synagogue. Every prose- 
lyte had been circumcised and baptized, and his chil- 
dren also, if born previous to his conversion. When, 
then, a synagogue, or members of it, became Chris- 
tian, we must believe that the children went with 
their parents. Crispus, the chief ruler of the syna- 
gogue at Corinth, turned unto Christ "with all his 
house," which is a plain statement that all of his 
family were entered and recorded as members of the 
Christian Church then founded at Corinth. It mat- 
ters not whether he had any children or not, the 
principle is that which is to be considered. It is in- 
credible to think that Crispus, who was certainly 
versed in Holy Scripture, would have unchurched 
his children. There had been no command given to 
that effect. If they were excluded because they could 
not believe, that same disability, in the face of Jeho- 
vah's command, would have excluded them from the 
true Israel of God under the theocracy, which every 
Jew knew was false. Moreover, not to mention the in- 
tense Jewish prejudice for everything Jewish, the de- 
fense of the Christian Jew against the charge of his 
late co-religionist that he had forsaken Moses and the 
God of his fathers, was that he had embraced that 
concerning which Moses and the prophets did write, 
and that, therefore, instead of ceasing to be a son of 
Abraham and one of the holy seed, he had truly be- 
come, as never before, a member of the true Israel of 
God. But what reply could be made to the fact, had 
it been true, that contrary to the teachings of Jehovah 
in Israel from the days of Abraham, he had un- 
churched or excluded his children from the blessings 



194 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

of the covenant? It is by thus studying these times 
that much light is thrown on the apparently strange 
fact that among the Hebrew Christians the circumcision 
of children continued until after the fall of Jerusalem, 
when the Jewish nation was broken, its religious rites 
and ceremonies discontinued, and the Hellenic or Gen- 
tile element became the dominant spirit in the Chris- 
tian Church. If the rational view, which we have 
presented all along, of the actual condition of things 
at the founding of the Church is rejected, it is at the 
cost of a common-sense interpretation of history. We 
must resort, for the explanation of what we can not 
destroy, to fanciful and far-fetched possibilities, dis- 
course vaguely on what might have been, and finally, 
by objectifying our prejudices and clothing them with 
the attributes of belief, pay the penalty of those who, 
forsaking the substance for the shadow, the facts of 
history for the vagaries of the imagination, forget the 
semblance of truth in the illusiveness of falsehood, 
and wander in the blindness of negation. 

The writer of the Acts never dreamed that his 
simple narrative would become so obscure in its sim- 
plest utterances ; that, for instance, when he wrote of 
households or families embracing Christianity he in- 
tended to omit the young members of the family. He 
nowhere intimates that he is to be so understood. He 
writes in the common language, and therefore intends 
that he shall be understood as that language is commonly 
understood. Those who immediately succeeded the 
Apostles, and whose mother tongue was Greek, and 
those whose parents and teachers had listened to these 
successors, and had been nurtured in the doctrine and 



GENTILES AND THE DISPERSION. 195 

customs of the Church, had no difficulty in under- 
standing the household baptisms mentioned in the Acts, 
nor the references to children in the Epistles of St. 
Paul, as their writings, the inscriptions in the Cata- 
combs, and the universal practice of the Church, East 
and West, abundantly testify. 

We may study some instances : 

Acts xvi, 13, 15. 
"And when she was baptized and her household," etc. 

If Lydia by this act became a Christian, the mem- 
bers of her family also became members of the Church. 
It will be observed that this pious woman was a 
proselyte, for she " worshiped God ;" and what the 
law and custom was concerning the children or mem- 
bers of a proselyte's family, has been already set 
forth. How old the members of her family were it 
is idle to conjecture. They were still under her care, 
and had not established families of their own apart 
from her. They are not mentioned as being grown, 
and of their faith nothing is said. 

The Peshito version of the New Testament, which 
was in use among all the Churches of Syria and 
Mesopotamia, and which was made by some one of the 
Apostles or evangelists, as Mark, or Thaddeus, the 
Apostle of Mesopotamia (as he is called), or by some 
of their co-laborers in the gospel, renders this passage 
and all similar passages in harmony with the view of 
child-membership : " Her heart our Lord opened, and 
she hearkened to what Paul spoke, and she was bap- 
tized and the sons [beni, children] of her house." 
The practice of all the Churches in Syria and Meso- 



196 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

potamia determines clearly how they understood the 
teachings of their version, concerning which James 
Martin, a professor at Wittenberg, in his preface to 
the Syriac New Testament, 1610, says: "Let those 
who speak lightly of this version know that the 
Syriac, if not the very language in which Christ himself 
conversed with his Apostles, approaches very nearly 
to the vernacular tongue of our Savior and his com- 
panions, and that into it the recent books of the New 
Testament were the first of all translated, and that, 
too, at the very time when the Apostles (those divine 
teachers whom Christ himself had educated, and who 
were enlightened and instructed by the Holy Spirit) 
were laying the first foundation of the Christian 
Church among the nations." * Origen, in his " Com- 
mentary on the Epistle to the Romans," says : " For 
this also the Church received, by tradition \tradi- 
tioneiii\ from the Apostles, to give baptism to young 
children [parvulis baptismum dare\P (Bk. 5.) We 
need not be shown, of course, that that made the 
children members of the Church. He says that this 
practice the Church received by tradition, and some 
have endeavored to make it appear that, therefore, the 
practice had no real ground or reason in apostolic 
teaching. One is pained to find even the great Ger- 
man critic, Meyer, " the prince of exegetes," and one 
therefore who ought to have been superior to the 



* Quoted by Dr. Murdock in the Appendix to his transla- 
tion of the Peshito. Many other scholars are quoted by him, 
and a more valuable resume of information on this subject is 
not to be found. See also Etheridge's Prolegomena to his 
Syriac "Apostolical Acts and Epistles," London, 1849. 



GENTILES AND THE DISPERSION. 197 

weakness of sectarian dogmatics, holding this view. 
He affirms that this baptism of children was not an 
"apostolic ordinance," and refers specially to the 
word tradition in this quotation from Origen. The 
word traditio, irapddoa^, tradition, signifies — as Meyer, 
it seems, ought to have known — in the writings of the 
Church Fathers, and also in the New Testament, a 
certain body of facts handed down either by writing 
or speaking. For example, Irenseus, reflecting on the 
false teachers of his day, says : " But, again, when we 
refer them to that tradition, which originates from the 
Apostles," etc. (Against Heresies, Bk. Ill, c. ii.) 
" It is within the power of all, therefore, in every 
Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contem- 
plate clearly the tradition of the Apostles, manifested 
throughout the whole world," etc. (Cap. iii.) In 
chapter iv he speaks of the many nations of those 
barbarians, who believe in Christ having " salvation 
written in their hearts by the Spirit, without paper 
and ink, and carefully preserving the ancient tradi- 
tion,^ etc., by which he means the truths of the Gos- 
pel announced by the Apostles, since those of whom 
bespeaks had not the "written documents." (See 
also chap, xx, Bk. V.) Clement of Alexandria (Stro- 
mata, Bk. VII, c. xvi) : "As, then, if a man should, 
similarly to those drugged by Circe, become a beast, 
so he who has spurned the Ecclesiastical tradition, 
and darted off to the opinions of heretical men, has 
ceased to be a man of God and to remain faithful to 
the Lord." Hippolytus terms the New Testament 
the tradition of the Apostles, as does also Gregory 
Nazianzen, and Suicer (Thes., Vol. II) gives several 



198 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

instances of the term being applied to the Gospels. 
The Apostle Paul uses the same term in the same 
sense as above, and not as denoting anything extra 
Scriptural. In 2 Thessalonians ii he says : " Hold 
fast the traditions which you have been taught, 
whether by ivord or our epistle" This proves that 
tradition includes written instructions as well as oral. 
It is therefore wholly uncritical for Meyer to 
refer to the term tradition as used by Origen, as if he 
meant thereby something unhistorical, supposititious, 
or legendary. Now, Origen was born of Christian 
parents, in Alexandria, eighty-five years after the 
days of the Apostles. His father was a martyr, his 
grandfather and grandmother and , great-grandfather 
were Christians. He was baptized in infancy, nur- 
tured in the Holy Scriptures, and, says Mosheim, be- 
came the greatest luminary of the Christian world ; 
a man of immense genius, of> fervent piety, of exten- 
sive erudition, Avhose " name will be transmitted 
with honor through the annals of time as long as 
learning and genius shall be esteemed among men." 
Eusebius tells us that he lived for some time in Greece 
and in Rome ; that he spent some time in Arabia and 
Cappadocia ; that at Csesarea he was requested by the 
bishops to expound the Sacred Scriptures publicly in 
the Church ; that he wrote his commentary on Isaiah in 
Palestine, in which country and in Syria he passed the 
most of his life. In these regions the first Churches 
were founded by the Apostles, and this eminent man 
of God, scholar, traveler, and commentator, having 
fall knowledge of all the Churches, their manners and 
customs, and being in constant intercourse with their 



GENTILES AND THE DISPERSION. 199 

chief pastors, especially with Alexander, bishop of 
Jerusalem, and Theotiaeus, bishop of Ca?sarea, — this 
man says: "The Church had from the Apostles the 
tradition, or instruction, to give baptism to young 
children, according to the saying of our Lord con- 
cerning infants," etc. In his " Homilv on Leviticus " 
he again says: "Why, according to the usage, or cus- 
tom, of the Church, it [baptism] is likewise given to 
little children." In his " Homily on Luke" he fur- 
ther says : " Little children are baptized for the for- 
giveness of sins. Of what sins'?" etc. He then 
continues his remarks on the cleansing from original 
sin. Here, then, is a man "of great and uncommon 
abilities," who had lived in the Eastern countries — in 
Syria, in Palestine, and adjoining countries — where the 
Peshito version was made, and among the Churches 
and people by whom it was used as our version is 
among us to-day, and he testifies that children were 
embraced by the Church in every country he visited. 
Everywhere he finds the same belief on that subject, 
and the same practice. This, then, without the pos- 
sibility of a rational, candid doubt, proves in what 
sense the conversion of Lydia's family, and that of 
the jailer at Philippi, and that of Crispus, the ruler of 
the synagogue at Corinth, was understood by the 
Christians who formed the first Churches planted by 
the Apostles in Syria and Mesopotamia. In 

Acts xvi, 31, 34, 

we have another instance, similar to the above, of an 
entire household or family becoming Christian. The 
Syriac reads : "And they spake the word of the Lord 



200 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

to him and to all the sons, or children, of his house." 
"And he was baptized immediately, he and all the 
sons of his house." It is a misfortune that two 
words in the Greek, both different, are translated in the 
English version by one word. Those words are 
olxia, oikia, a house, a building ; and dlxoz, oikos, a 
family, descendants. Peter, after his release from 
prison, came to the house, oikia, of Mary. , (Acts xii, 
12, 14.) The dwelling of Simon, the tanner, is called 
oikia. (Acts iii, 6.) This term is wider in meaning 
than oikos, for it includes the slaves, the attendants, 
and various servants attached to a family. But the 
term oikos properly signifies a family in the narrower 
sense — Septuagint (2 Sam. vii, 11,27, 29). And since 
the terms " house of Jacob," " house of Israel," 
" house of David," etc., so often met with in the 
Scripture, must include children, the term must in- 
clude young children and infants. Now, it sometimes 
includes children as distinct from their parents. (Com- 
pare Gen. xlvi, 27, with vs. 5.) In verse five men- 
tion is made of the " little ones ;" in verse twenty- 
seven these are embraced without modification in the 
phrase " house of Jacob " [olxov 'Iaxcoff]. In Exodus 
i, 1, the same word is used that is employed in the 
chapter under consideration (Acts xvi, 34) : " Every 
man and his navotxl, whole family." In order to keep 
children out of the Church of the New Testament, 
we can not say that no children came up out of 
Egypt in the houses of their fathers. For other 
references, consult the original and Septuagint in 
Deut. xxv, 9 ; Num. xviii, 11 ; 2 Sam. xii, 11 ; 1 Sam. 
ii, 3; Job xx, 28; Euth iv, 11, 12; Ps. lxviii, 6 ; Isa. 



GENTILES AND THE DISPERSION. 201 

xiii, 16. In some of these passages the word has 
reference to children only. Other texts may be cited 
in which the word embraces young children under 
the care of the parent ; e. g., 1 Timothy iii, 4, 5 : " One 
that ruleth well his own house [o?*oc], having his 
children in subjection with all gravity. For if a man 
know not how to rule his own house [oikos] how 
shall he take care of the Church of God ?" Again : 
"Let the deacons be the husband of one wife, ruliug 
their children, even their own house [o?£os] well." 
(Vs. 12.) 

Finally, in the whole of the New Testament there 
is not a single passage in which oikia is used in con- 
nection with the administration of baptism. The 
oikia is never baptized, but the oikos is. Hence, when 
the Apostle mentions the houses of Lydia, Crispus, 
Stephanas, Aristobulus, the Philippian jailer, One- 
siphorus, and Narcissus, we must understand him to 
mean the family in every instance ; and, then, if we 
would exclude children from the Church, take the 
astounding position, without the shadow of proof in 
support of it, that in these families, and in all the 
families who joined the Christian Church in Europe 
and Asia, from the day of Pentecost to the death ol 
St. John, A. D. 102 (or 100), a period of seventy 
years, there were no children ! In his Epistle to the 
Smyrneaus, Ignatius (died A. D. 107) says : " I salute 
the families [roue olxouz] of my brethren, with their 
wives and children." 

If, now, we turn to the Epistles of St. Paul, we 
shall find proof positive that there were children in 
the families composing the Churches he had founded, 



202 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

and that they were included in the Christian commu- 
nity. From what has been already said on the 
Jewish and proselyte composition of those Churches, 
we know that they were so reckoned. That they were 
so regarded by the Apostles is evidenced in 

1 Corinthians vii, 12, 14. 
" Else were your children unclean, but now are they holy." 

Every Bible-reader knows that to be "unclean" 
was the same as being uncircumcised, and therefore as 
being outside covenant relation with God. No un- 
clean person could be numbered with the holy people, 
the people of the covenant. He was a heathen. The 
term ayca, holy, is the New Testament word for the 
Old Testament term tsrrp, Jcodesh, "pure, clean." It 
is used by the Apostle as the common designation of 
the members of the Church. Romans xv, 25 : " I 
go to Jerusalem to minister to the saints [ro?c Stylois]" 
So also in the Salutations : " To the saints [to7z a-fioc<;\ 
which are at Ephesus ; to the saints and faithful at 
Colosse, at Philippi." 

This term " holy " is never given in the Scriptures 
to any but those who, in the Old Testament, are in 
covenant with God, or who, in the New Testament, 
are members of the Christian Church. It is never 
used by the New Testament writers as designating the 
Jewish people of the New Testament period. It be- 
longs, in their usus loquendi, to the members of Christ's 
body. The unbelieving husband, even, is declared by 
the Apostle to be in some sense under the holy influ- 
ence of the believing wife. It will not be understood 
that this designation " holy " affirms personal inward 



GENTILES AND THE DISPERSION. 203 

holiness of any one thus styled, since that could be 
known to God alone, but that such ones are separated 
unto God and his service, as the Israelites, though not 
all holy, are called a " holy nation ;" and the mem- 
bers of the Church at Coriuth and elsewhere are 
called " saints." In this instance the word is used 
in its ecclesiastical, and not in its spiritual, sense. 

Now, Paul says that the children of one believing 
parent are clean, pure, thus designating them by the 
identical title the members of the Church bear. 
Knowing the teaching of the Apostle on infant sal- 
vation, and that at Jerusalem he refuted the charge 
that he taught the Jews not to circumcise their chil- 
dren, we can see no other conclusion than that he con- 
sidered believers' children as within the visible fold 
of Christ. Mr. Wesley paraphrases' the passage thus : 
" Else your children would have brought up heathens ; 
whereas, now they are Christians. As if he had said, 
Ye see the proof of it before your eyes." Meyer, in 
his Commentary, observes : " That Christians' children 
are not profane, outside of the theocratic community 
and the Divine covenant, and belonging to the unholy 
Jcosmos, but on the contrary holy, is the conceded point 
from which the Apostle proves that the non-believing 
husband is sanctified through his believing wife." 
Dr. A. Clarke has a lengthy note on the same pas- 
sage, the essence of which is : " If this kind of rela- 
tive sanctification were not allowed, the children of 
these persons could not be received into the Christian 
Church, nor enjoy any rights or privileges as Chris- 
tians ; but the Church of God never scrupled to admit 
such children as members, just as well as she did those 



204 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

who had sprang from parents, both of whom were 
Christians." The fact is, this passage demonstrates the 
Church membership of children under the teaching of 
the Apostle. The difficulty which he had to settle 
grew out of the primal question, If the children of 
parents, both being believers, are holy, what is the 
status of children of parents one only of whom is a 
believer? Now, if the children of parents both Chris- 
tians were not holy, how could the children having 
only one Christian parent be holy ? The Apostle, as 
Meyer says, " concedes ;" he assumes, as a matter of 
fact then known and accepted, that believers' children 
are holy, and thus settles the important question, on 
that principle, concerning the conjugal relationship 
between an unbelieving husband and a Christian wife. 
The final proof in the New Testament for Church 
membership of children, as it has been defined in this 
work, is found in the Apostolic recognition of chil- 
dren as Church members. This is important. In 
the Epistle to the Ephesian Church the greeting of 
the Apostle is to the "holy ones" and to the faithful 
in Christ Jesus. In this Epistle, children, under the 
care of their parents, are mentioned in a manner 
which proves their membership just as clearly as the 
same manner, when employed with respect to adults, 
proves their membership. 

Ephesians vi, 1, 4. 

"Children, obey your parents in the Lord. . . . Fathers, 
bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." 

It is sometimes said that this exhortation to the 
children does not imply their Church membership, 
since they could be exhorted without being members. 



GENTILES AND THE DISPERSION. 205 

This is correct, but it proves too much. For the same 
argument would leave the Church at Ephesus without 
any members, since the fathers and mothers and serv- 
ants, exhorted in precisely similar terms, could all be 
exhorted without being members of the Church. To 
assume a possibility, and then make it a universal cer- 
tainty, is not reason, but unreason, and its irration- 
ality is its own refutation. Only on the ground that 
the children addressed belonged to the Church, and 
were so recognized by the Apostle, can the particular 
tone of the exhortation be accounted for — " Children, 
obey your parents in the Lord." The parallel pas- 
sage (Col. iii, 20) reads: " For this is well pleasing 
in the Lord." Again, fathers are exhorted fondly to 
cherish them in the nurture (instruction) and admoni- 
tion (discipline) of the Lord. The Syriac reads: 
" Train them up in the discipline and doctrine of our 
Lord." As might be expected, and in conformity 
with the fact of the unity of the Old Testament and 
New Testament Churches, as affirmed in his Epistles, 
Paul continues, in the economy of Christianity, the Old 
Testament idea of the religious nurture of children. 

In Colossians iii, 20, 21, we have similar instruc- 
tion. The salutation, like that to the Ephesians, is to 
the saints (holy ones) and faithful brethren. Children 
are included, for they are exhorted as are other mem- 
bers of the Church. From a study of these several 
passages it is conclusive that children were in the 
Church of the Apostolic Period. We do not suppose, 
and have not taught, that they were members in the 
fullest sense. Our position is, that the position of 
children in the New Testament Church was precisely 



206 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

similar to the position of children in the Church of 
the Old Testament ; that the Church of the New Tes- 
tament being a continuation of the Church of the Old 
Testament, the Apostles and believing Jews continued 
to hold and practice the same belief that they did hold 
and practice before the Church of Christ was formally 
opened. Strong objections will be made to this state- 
ment, among many of which will be the one couched 
in the counter-statement that, without positive faith 
on the part of the applicant, there was no admission 
to the Christian Church. Such objections, and many 
others not here mentioned, have been carefully con- 
sidered. They have not been set aside as trivial and 
of little weight; rather have they been studied with 
the belief that in most of them lay a germ of truth. 
This has been recognized, and the chaff rejected. The 
objection stated is, perhaps, the most important. 
Meyer stumbles over it, and the truth in it is, that just 
as no proselyte, under the Old Testament, was ad- 
mitted, without faith in the God of Israel and the rev- 
elation he had given in the Sacred Book, into the 
Kahal of Jehovah, among the people of God, so no 
Jew or proselyte could enter the Christian Church 
without faith in Jesus Christ, the Messiah of God, as 
the Redeemer which was to come as a Savior from 
sin. But since the faith of an alien, under the Old 
Testament, was taken as the faith of the family, and 
the children were taken in with the proselyte parents 
under the wings of the majesty of God, so in the Church 
of the New Testament the faith of believing parents 
sanctified the children, "else were your children un- 
clean, but now they are holy." 



GENTILES AND THE DISPERSION. 207 

But there is also historical proof of child-member- 
ship, based on these passages from the Epistles to 
Ephesians and Colossians. It will be noted that the 
members of these Churches are called "faithful." This 
significant word entered into the heart of the Church, 
and, because of its comprehensive meaning,* continued 
long as a beautiful and holy title of the Christian 
brethren. The iuscriptions from the Catacombs show 
that this word "faithful"' was given to the children 
of believers. Many instauces could be cited, but the 
following will suffice (Taylor's Facts and Ev.) : " A 
' Faithful/ descended from ancestors who were Faith- 
fuls. Here lies Zosimus. He lived two years, one 
month, and twenty-five days."" 

This inscription bears the ichthus (fish) and anchor, 
symbols approved by Clement of Alexandria (Paxlag., 
Lib. Ill, c. 2) at the close of the second ceutury, A. D. 
185. How, we may inquire, did the ancestors of this 
child Zosimus, who were themselves " Faithfuls,"" un- 
derstand the term and its implications? Even in this 
inquiry we may not investigate fruitlessly, hopeless as 
it may seem. Origen was born five years after the 
above date. His father, as already stated, was a 
Christian, and died a martyr; his grandfather and his 
great-grandfather also were Christians. If from this 
date, A. D. 185, we subtract twenty-five years — a mod- 
erate number — for Origen's father, forty for his grand- 
father, and forty for his great-grandfather, we are 
brought to the year A. D. 80. Some ten or twelve 
years previous, Mark the Evangelist died as a martyr, 
having founded the Church at Alexandria, where 
Origen was born. The Apostle John was yet alive, 



208 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

as were many " faithful " men to whom had been 
committed the doctrines of the gospel. Here, then, 
are hundreds of Christian men, with their teachers, 
commissioned by the Apostles or the Evangelists, 
Timothy and Titus, according to the instructions of 
Paul, who were contemporary with the ancestors of 
Origen. Is it within the region of truth to suppose 
that these Christians did not know the Apostolic doc- 
trine, nor the common belief and practice of their own 
day? How, then, did they understand that doctrine 
and practice ? That is easily understood from the fact 
that Origen was baptized in his infancy. But whence 
did his father obtain this belief? His father, also, it 
is said, was baptized in infancy. Where, then, did 
the grandfather get it but from the great-grandfather? 
Origen was brought up in the Church as his father 
had been before him, and all his ancestors of several 
generations. A " Faithful," then, was one within the 
pale of the Church. Another instance : " To Nina 
Florentina, a most sweet and innocent infant, made a 
Faithful by her parent." The parent in seclusion bap- 
tizes the child ; but, not satisfied with the manner or 
the circumstances — for from the inscription it is evident 
persecution was devastating the Church — the child is 
again "made a Faithful at the eighth hour of the 
night, at the last extremity of life. She lived but four 
hours afterward, the rite having been performed ac- 
cording to custom. She died at Hybla. . . . On 
which decease her parents wept with each other every 
moment of the night, open lamentations for the Chris- 
tian dead being prohibited as treason. Her corpse, 
with its coffin, by the presbyters, was interred in the 



GENTILES AND THE DISPERSION. 209 

burying-place of the Christian martyrs, the fourth of 
the Nones of October." (Taylor's Apostolic Bap., 
New York, 1844, 145.) This child was, the inscrip- 
tion tells us, a "daughter of Zoilus the Corrector." 
Correctors are mentioned as early as A. D. 117. 
" Cynacus, a Faithful, died eight days less than three 
years." "Eustafia, the mother, places this in com- 
memoration of her son Polichronis, a Faithful, who 
lived three years." "Urcia Florentina, a Faithful, 
rests here in peace. She lived five years, eight months, 
and eight days." 

It is evident, then, that from the days of the 
Apostles the Church gathered the children to her 
bosom. I am fully aware that Tertullian, the con- 
temporary of Origen, may be, and has been, quoted 
in opposition to this view. I am also just as certain 
that no Antipedobaptist has presented Tertullian with 
the historical background necessary to a correct under- 
standing of his position. He did not oppose the bap- 
tism of children, nor their admission to the Church, on 
Scriptural grounds, nor as being opposed to the practice 
of the Church, nor because it was a new thing intro- 
duced by heretical teachers. For none of these rea- 
sons did he antagonize what was then, as Origen (who 
had far better facilities for knowing than Tertullian) 
tells us, the practice of the Universal Church. His 
sole ground of opposition, besides the idea that it was 
more useful (utilior est) to wait, was theological, and 
that it should be deferred till they were confirmed in 
continence. 

The historical evidence for child membership from 
the Apostolic Period is complete and conclusive. A 



210 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

final resume of it may appropriately close this chapter. 
Immediately connected with the Apostle John, by 
whom he was appointed bishop of Smyrna, is 

Polycarp. — This holy man was, as Irenaeus his 
disciple tells us, " instructed by the Apostles, and 
was brought into contact with many who had seen 
Christ." (Adv. Hser., Ill, 3 ; Euseb., Hist. Eccl., 
IV, 14.) In the year A. D. 167, about sixty-five 
years after the death of John the Apostle, he sealed 
his faith in martyrdom. When urged by his perse- 
cutors to reproach Christ, he declared : "Eighty and 
six years have I served him, and he never did me 
any injury; how, then, can I blaspheme my King and 
my Savior ?" (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. I, p. 88, 
Clark's Ed.) Polycarp, then, was made a disciple of 
Christ in childhood. 

Ieenjeus. — Dodwell puts the date of his birth 
A. D. 97, but A. D. 120 is probably correct. He 
was the disciple of the venerable Polycarp, and in 
his Epistle to Florinus recounts how Polycarp used 
to relate the discourses of the Apostles, and what 
things he had heard from them concerning the Lord. 
In his great work "Against Heresies," Irenaeus says: 
" For he [Christ] came to save all persons by him- 
self; all, I mean, who are by him regenerated unto 
God \renascuntur in Deum\, infants [infantes'], and little 
ones [parvulos], and children [pueros], and youths and 
elder persons. Therefore he went through the dif- 
ferent ages, for infants being made an infant, sanctifying 
infants," etc. The word renascuntur, regenerated, is a 
term used in the second century, and afterwards to 
denote baptism. Although this is disputed, as every- 



GENTILES AND THE DISPERSION. 211 

tiling must be that favors the Church relation of 
children, there is such undoubted proof of it that 
with those who understand the force of argument, it 
is no longer a debatable question. For instance, 
Justin Martyr, referring to the manner of admission 
into the Church, says : " Then we bring them to a 
place where there is water and we regenerate them by 
the same way of regeneration by which we were re- 
generated" (Apolog. Prima; see also Clem. Alex., 
Predegog., Bk. I, c. 6.) 

Justin Maetye. — He was born in Flavia Ne- 
apolis, a city of Samaria, about A. D. 114. He 
studied in the schools of the philosophers, became a 
Christian, and suffered martyrdom under Marcus 
Aurelius. His writings are among the most im- 
portant of that age, when Christianity w T as contend- 
ing with all the world-powers for an existence. He 
wrote a little before Irenaeus, and how harmoniously 
they both express the belief of the Church then just 
as the Apostles left it, will be seen in this extract, 
which we have quoted before (Apol. II) : 

" There are many persons among us, of both sexes, 
of sixty and seventy years of age, who were made dis- 
ciples to Christ from their childhood, that continue 
uncorrupted." 

Oeigen, A. D. 185. — This writer has been cited, 
and bore testimony, that the admission of children by 
baptism into the Church was derived from the Apos- 
tles, and that it was the usage of the Church, secun- 
dum ecclesioz observantiam. (Homilia 8, in Lev.) 

Teetullian. — The fact that this writer endeav- 
ored to oppose a practice which, to his thinking, 



212 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

would be more useful if delayed until the innocent 
ones were grown up and had been confirmed in virtue 
or married, donee aut nubant aut continentia corrobor- 
antur, is proof sufficient of the statement of Origen 
that the practice was then the usage of the Church. 

Cyprian. — One hundred and fifty years from the 
close of the Apostolic days we find the whole Church 
at Carthage setting forth its belief. Cyprian was born 
about A. D. 200, converted under the presbyter Csecilius 
A. D. 246, and two years after, A. D. 248, accepted 
the office of bishop of Carthage, which he held until 
his martyrdom, A. D. 258. In the Epistle to Fidus 
is the faith of the Church : 

" Cyprian and others, his colleagues, who were 
present in council, in number sixty-six, to Fidus their 
brother, greeting: 

" We have read your letter, dearest brother, etc. 

" But in respect of the case of infants, which you 
say ought not to be baptized within the second or 
third day after their birth, and that the law of ancient 
circumcision should be regarded, so that you think 
that one who is just born should not be baptized and 
sanctified within the eight days, we all thought very 
differently in our council; for in this course, which 
you thought was to be taken, no one agreed; but we 
all rather judge that the mercy and grace of God is 
not to be refused to any one born of man." 

The whole epistle is very strong, and asserts the 
gift of the Holy Ghost to all alike : " For God, as he 
does not accept the person, so does not accept the age, 
since he shows himself a Father to all with well 
weighed quality for the attainment of heavenly grace." 



GENTILES AND THE DISPERSION. 213 

It will be noted that of sixty-six Carthaginian pres- 
byters, not one opposed the ancient usage. Coming 
down a little later, the Council of Eliberis, held about 
200 years from the Age of the Apostles, affirmed that 
if any one went over from the Church to any heresy, 
he must repent before he can be readmitted. 

" But if they were infants [infantes] when they 
were carried over, because as it was not by their own 
fault that they erred, they ought to be admitted with- 
out delay." 

Gregory Nazianzen, 370 A. D. — This eminent 
teacher continues the chain of evidence of the uni- 
versal practice of the Church. The previous testi- 
mony was from a Council in Sj:>ain • Gregory repre- 
sents the Greeks : 

" Have you an infant ? Let not wickedness have 
the advantage of time from his infancy; let him be 
sanctified, \jx (3pi<pouz b\yiaaQr t Tco\ from the cradle let 
him be consecrated by the Spirit." (Oratio de Bap- 
tismo, Or. 40.) This same father, in a eulogy on 
Basil, another pillar of truth in that age, says : "And 
was not this man consecrated to God in his infancy 
from the womb, and carried to the steps of the bap- 
tismal fount in a coat ?" That is, the white alba used 
at baptism. 

Ambrose, A. D. 385. — This bishop, referring to 
Christ's reply to Nicodemus, says : " You see he ex- 
cepts no person, not an infant." And " those infants 
that are baptized are reformed back again from wick- 
edness." 

Chrysostom, 387 A. D. ; Jerome, 390 A. D. ; 
the Council of Carthage, 397 A. D. ; Pelagius and 



214 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

Augustine, A. D. 400, could all be quoted, but enough 
has been already given here and in the body of the 
work to convince one that child membership in the 
Church of God is as old as the Church itself. It 
began in the family of Abraham; was continued 
under special ordinance of God through all the long 
age of Jewish history; indorsed by prophets, and 
sustained by the religious consciousness of the people 
in exile. It was recognized by Christ, continued in 
the Christian Church, taught by the Apostles, accepted 
by the Church, and transmitted as an institution of 
Christianity from generation to generation, and never 
once opposed, until the rise of the Petrobrussians, 
who denied infant salvation, in the Middle Ages, 
about the year 1126. The creed of these men is the 
first formal and public opposition to child-member- 
ship and baptism on record in the history of the ages. 



CHILDREN AND THE SACRAMENTS. 215 



CHAPTER XL 

THE RELATION OF CHILDREN TO THE SACRAMENTS. 

ASACKAMENT is an outward sign of inward 
grace ordained by Christ. Protestantism recog- 
nizes two sacraments only, Holy Baptism and the 
Lord's Supper. The relation of children to the 
sacraments does not depend upon their Church mem- 
bership. It is grounded on a principle underlying 
that; for if particular sects or divisions of the Uni- 
versal Church should legislate against the rights of 
children as regards membership, the relation which 
they hold to the sacraments would be destroyed. 
The relation which children bear to the sacraments 
rests upon the same ground as does their membership 
in the Church; that is, it is determined by the rela- 
tion which they sustain to Christ and Christ sustains 
to them. 

Concerning infant baptism, it is not necessary to 
treat; for on that special subject the works are multi- 
tudinous, and all that has been said on the Church 
membership of children in this work, applies with 
equal force and equally proves the validity of infant 
baptism. It is of divine origin, was practiced by the 
Apostles, was committed by them to faithful men 
who succeeded them in the ministry, preserved in the 
Church through all the periods of persecution and 
conflict, and transmitted without a single break in 

19 



216 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

the continuity of its practice to our day. Those who 
oppose the baptism of infants have their reasons for 
so doing, but in no case will their method of inter- 
pretation sustain their position without violence to 
the whole economy of God as set forth in the Old 
and New Testaments. Nor is this all. Their method 
of interpreting the Holy Scriptures, if logically 
adhered to, would destroy many of the soundest truths 
of Christianity ; such as, for instance, the doctrine of 
the Trinity, the inspiration of whole books and parts 
of books included in the Sacred Canon, the commun- 
ion of women, the observance of the Sabbath, and 
many other Christian doctrines for which and con- 
cerning which there is no express command in the 
New Testament. When opposers to infant baptism 
come to these Scriptural truths, they forget the logic 
of their method and interpret as other Christians, 
which it would be impossible for them to do if they 
introduced the unwarrantable assumptions, and em- 
ployed the same principles of interpretation which 
they invent and use in the explanation of the simple 
narratives or statements which make for infant bap- 
tism in the Acts and Epistles. The concessions of 
Church historians are employed in a way not altogether 
warranted by statements of the same historians in 
other parts of their works. Neander, Hagenbach, 
Gieseler, Schaff, and others are quoted as being con- 
vinced that this practice is not of Apostolic origin, 
and Meyer is cited as saying that there is no witness 
for the rite before Tertullian. Now, in the first place, 
the sources of Church history, and especially of the 
Primitive Church, are as open to us, and the facts 



CHILDREN AND THE SACRAMENTS, 217 

there given are just as clear to one of ordinary intelli- 
gence, as they are to the writer of history. It is at 
bottom a question of interpretation, and historians as 
sincere as Neander and the rest, and not lacking 
either in scholarship or in the tact or insight of the 
historic spirit, have come to different conclusions. 
As a matter of fact, it does seem that Origen, who 
lived so near the Apostolic Period, who had traveled 
so extensively throughout the Christendom of his 
day — a man who, as Mosheim says, will be esteemed 
among men while time shall last, for his towering 
abilities in every department of religious thought — it 
does seem that such a man ought to be as competent 
a witness on this subject as Xeander or any other 
writer of our modern age. Origen found the practice 
of infant baptism wherever he went, in Greece, or 
Rome, or Syria, or Mesopotamia ; and he says it was 
handed down from the Apostles. Neander himself 
admits that infant baptism is traceable in the days of 
Irenaeus, who was born some sixty or seventy years 
before Origen. The letter of Irenaeus to Florinus, 
in which he exhorts him to maintain the Apostolic 
teaching and to resist all new doctrines, demonstrates 
his advocacy of Apostolic practice. But if infant 
baptism was introduced in his age, how shall we 
account for the silence of this zealous advocate of 
Apostolic usage and strong opponent of all innova- 
tion ? It is well known that only a few of the early 
Christian writings have come down to us. Eusebius 
tells us (Hist. Eccles. 4, 18,) that Justin Martyr left 
"numerous memorials ;" but of the majority of his 
works we have little more than the title. One of his 



218 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

last writings was a reply to objections to the Christian 
faith. And Neander, in his remarks on infant baptism 
in the writings of Irenaeus (Hist, of Christ. Eelig. and 
Church During the Three First Cent., p. 198), says: 
" From the deficiency of historical documents of the 
first half of this period we must also avow that the 
want of any positive testimony to the custom can not 
be brought as an argument against its antiquity." He 
then goes on [to remark : " The first passage which 
appears expressly to point to this matter is found in 
Irenseus." But Meyer says, " There is no witness for 
the rite before Tertullian," who came long afterwards, 
and who did not oppose the rite until he became a 
Montanist. Which, of Neander and Meyer, has the 
better historical judgment, may be left for those who 
quote them to decide. 

In the second place, when historians like those or 
Gieseler vote with others that infant baptism was not 
universal, it looks like putting history on the rack, in 
order to wrench from her damaging facts not otherwise 
obtainable. One solitary instance of a remote semi- 
civilized Christian community failing to observe the 
practice, is sufficient, in the hands of these inquisitors 
of historical veracity, to destroy its universality. Why 
the same method of historical study does not destroy 
the universality of infant baptism in this our present 
day, is a marvelous feat of logic. When unsectarian 
common sense says that, from her study of early 
Church history, infant baptism was universal, she 
does not mean thereby that every Christian family in 
the universe adopted and rigorously practiced that 
baptism. That was never other than it is to-day. 



CHILDREN AND THE SACRAMENTS. 219 

Throughout Christendom infant baptism is practiced; 
but there are thousands of Christians who never so 
consecrate their children, following unconsciously the 
advice of Tertullian. Again : illustrious names are 
given in bunches, of men who were not baptized in 
infancy; and this, we are told, is evidence irrefutable 
that the baptism of infants was not general in the 
times of these men, and was therefore a recent addi- 
tion to the ancient faith. Athanasius, Basil, Gregory 
Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Jerome, and Augustine were 
all baptized after they had reached adult life, says a 
late writer; but this same writer is careful not to 
answer the stern question of history : " Did any of 
these men know or hear of a time when infant bap- 
tism was not practiced ?" Augustine quotes Celestius, 
his opponent, as saying : " We acknowledge that in- 
fants ought to be baptized for the remission of sins, 
according to the rule of the Universal Church (regu- 
lam universalis Ecclesice), and according to the mean- 
ing of the gospel." Augustine also quotes another of 
his opponents, Pelagius, as saying : " He is slandered 
by men, as if he denied the sacrament of baptism to 
young children. He never heard even of any impious 
heretic who would avow such a thing in regard to little 
children ; for who is there so ignorant of Gospel reading 
that he would — not to say, venture to affirm this, but 
even, in a heedless way, think such a thing." All this, 
every student student of Church history knows, Augus- 
tine approved. Gregory Kazianzen would put off the 
baptism until the child was three years old, except when 
in danger of death. Chrysostom, in his Homily 40 
in Genesiso (Edit. Savill., Jm. I), expresses his belief 



220 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

contrary to what the author we are referring to seems 
to think it is : " But our circumcision — I mean the 
grace of baptism — gives cure without pain, and pro- 
cures for us a thousand benefits, and fills us with the 
grace of the Spirit. And it has no determinate time, 
as that had; but it is lawful to any one in the very 
beginning of his age, or in the middle of it, or in old 
age, to receive this circumcision without hands." So 
we might go through the list. Many eminent men of 
the late Mcene period, and after, were baptized late in 
life, because from the time of Tertullian the idea that 
baptism washed away all sin became general ; and lest 
sinful days should intervene between baptism and the 
hour of death, it was natural that it would be put off 
as late as possible. Thus much have we said on this 
subject. 

Kespecting the partaking of the Lord's Supper by 
children, it is necessary to explain [their relation to 
that sacrament, because of the ill-founded charge of 
inconsistency alleged against the Churches by those 
opposed to child-membership. If children are truly 
baptized, and are members of Christ's Church, why, 
we are asked, are they refused the communion of the 
body and blood of Christ? 

First. Between infant communion and child-com- 
munion there is a wide difference. An infant is a 
child, but a child is not necessarily an infant. Infant 
communion has no warrant in Scripture ; for we never 
read there, in any instance, of households partaking of 
the Holy Sacrament. This is precisely what, from 
our view of the continuity of the Old Testament 
Church in the Church of the New Testament, we 



CHILDREN AND THE SACRAMENTS. 221 

should expect. The Jewish infant, although he was 
circumcised, did not eat the Passover; because he 
could not; and he did not partake when he could, 
until he had been instructed in its meaning. To give 
the Passover to one who could not understand its sig- 
nificance, would be to destroy the very end for which 
it was instituted. There is a profound distinction be- 
tween Circumcision and the Passover. The first is the 
symbol, the sign and seal of a covenant relation between 
God and man. It symbolizes much, but it mainly sets 
forth what must be, and thus is, the life-long token 
of obligation, and of the promise of God if the obli- 
gation signified is fulfilled. The Passover is the Old 
Testament symbol of redemption. It is sacrificial and 
commemorative, and unless one can enter into the 
meaning of both, the symbol is no symbol. 

Now, Christian baptism is also thus distinguished 
from the Lord's Supper. It is a sign and seal of a 
covenant, and introduces one into the Church of 
Christ. The Supper of the Lord is also a covenant, 
and it is both sacrificial and commemorative. Those 
who partake of it, eat of the bread, " discerning the 
Lord's body," and looking unto Christ's death as a 
sacrifice for sin, and it is, therefore, on the part of those 
who eat, an act of faith. In drinking the wine we 
recognize the blood of the everlasting covenant, the 
blood shed for the remission of sin, which can only 
be done by genuine faith in the precious blood of 
Christ. To participate, then, in this most holy insti- 
tution of the Christian religion, it is absolutely neces- 
sary that one should " discern the Lord's body," for 
without this there is no communion. Hence, although 



222 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

preached by the Greek Church, the New Testament 
doctrine of the Eucharist forbids infant communion. 
It is commemorative. St. Paul says : " For as often 
as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show 
forth the Lord's death until he come." Our blessed 
Lord said : " As oft as ye do this, do it in remembrance 
of me" — which was not merely to be a commemoration 
of the historical event of Christ's death, but as a pub- 
lication of that death as a sacrifice, according to the 
teachings of Christ for the remission of sin. Now, it 
it is evident, since an infant can not, by the very 
limitations which God, the Author of our being, has 
placed upon it as an infant, fulfill these requirements, 
without which there is no sacrament of the Supper, 
that therefore infant communion has no place in the 
Christian Church. Baptism, on its human side, like 
circumcision, shows what must be; the Lord's Supper, 
like the Passover, shows what the recipient does. 

The assertion of Antipedobaptists that infant bap- 
tism stands on precisely similar historical grounds as 
infant communion, is without foundation. The first 
intimation of infant communion is found in the writ- 
ings of Cyprian. But this was the period when the 
magical effects of the sacraments began to take root 
in Christian thinking. Tertullian, as w T e have seen, 
would put off the baptism of infants until they had 
some sin to wash away, and it soon became the 
fashion to leave that sacrament for the last of life. 
Infant communion would naturally follow such teach- 
ings ; for, on the assumption that the sacraments 
benefited ex opere operato, there would be no reason 
to exclude infants. But that error was unknown 



CHILDREN AND THE SACRAMENTS. 223 

before the days of Tertullian, and consequently he 
nowhere mentions it. nor is there the faintest trace of 
it visible in any of the writers prior to him. 

Second. Child communion is a different matter. It 
is practiced by evangelical Churches, and has been 
the usage of the Church of God in all ages. Bap- 
tized children stand in this respect also, by virtue of 
their relation to Christ, on the same ground with 
adult believers. There is no New Testament require- 
ment which the child instructed can not fulfill ac- 
cording to the ability which God has given it, just 
as well as the older member of the Church. The 
Church requirements of both are identical. The 
Methodist Episcopal Church and the Church of Eng- 
land, as other Churches, make the same appeal to all 
without distinction. 

The Invitation. — " If any man sin, we have an 
advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; 
and he is the propitiation for our sins, and not for 
ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. 

" Wherefore ye that do truly and earnestly repent 
of your sins, and are in love and charity with your 
neighbors, and intend to lead a new life, following 
the commandments of God, and walking henceforth 
in his holy ways ; draw near with faith, and take 
this holy sacrament to your comfort; and, devoutly 
kneeling, make your humble confession to Almighty 
God." 

There is no inconsistency, then, in the action of 
those Churches who practice, according to Scripture 
and Apostolic usage, infant baptism and child-mem- 
bership, in the relation which their children sustain 



224 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

to the sacraments. The inconsistency, alas! is, it 
must be confessed, in the deplorable fact that the 
communion of children is not made a matter of serious 
concern on the part of parents. That baptized chil- 
dren should be suffered to grow up without instruction 
of a particular nature in the things of God, just as if 
they had never received the sacred ordinance; that 
they should be neglected by the pastors and officials 
of the Church, and allowed to take their chances in 
all things of a particular nature pertaining to God 
just like other children ; that they should be allowed 
to go on from year to year without experiencing Christ 
in their young souls, — this, and all these, are not incon- 
sistencies, they are great sins, for which God will, and 
does, hold us responsible. We always think a child 
has sense enough to sin and to run in the ways of 
darkness, but why is it that we look askance at religion 
in children and deem their conversion so unimportant? 
Emphasis is placed on the conversion of adults, and 
the children are in a measure discounted. When will 
the Church of God get on the side of God's law ? 
Never will there be that piety, that serious devotion 
to religion, in the Church, until tremendous importance 
is attached to the religious culture and experience of 
children. The future of Religion lies there, as does 
the future of the Nation. Efforts to convert the world 
while neglecting the children, is like destroying an 
army in front of you while behind you is growing up 
another. This work of child salvation must begin, 
not in the Church — that is, by the ministry of the 
Church — but in the family. The family is the one spot 
which must be kept as the holy of holies — not in 



CHILDREN AND THE SACRAMENTS. 225 

opposition to the Church, but as part of it — and it is 
there where the child must receive its best and most 
lasting and most determining blessings. This insures 
a family religion, the base of all Church vigor and 
piety. For what mother or father will pray with their 
child, and endeavor to lead it into a conscious expe- 
rience of Divine Grace, and yet themselves remain in- 
sensible to the love of the Heavenly Father and the 
God of all comfort? In the deep ways of God "a 
little child shall lead them." The care and solicitous 
study of child-nature on the part of those whose 
blood runs in the veins of the child thus yearned over, 
will tell for permanent good on the Church at large ; 
for, since the design of the Church is to raise up a 
holy seed, the interests of that Church in whose doc- 
trines and spirit the child is trained will, in the nature 
of things, be dear to the heart and mind of the godly 
parents. Thus does God reward the Church that 
obeys his laws, natural and revealed. 

Baptized children should be recorded in the books 
of the Church in which they are baptized, and be rec- 
ognized as probationary members until, having come 
to proper age, they are admitted into the full fellow- 
ship of the Church. They should be placed under 
the affectionate care of teachers, whose sole effort 
should be to lead the young mind in lines of holy 
thinking and simple understanding of the elements 
of the gospel, for the immediate purpose of bringing 
the child into deliberate, personal communion with 
Christ. Never should the child be regarded as a 
child of the devil, and that he must, in all probability, 
serve a long apprenticeship to the dark fiend until he 



226 CHRISTIANITY AND CHILDHOOD. 

has sense enough to turn to God. O, the supersti- 
tion of it ! Rather let him understand the signifi- 
cance of his baptism, and the blessedness of a life kept 
clean from the corruption and wretchedness of the 
world from the earliest days. Let him be subject to 
all necessary discipline like any other member, and in 
all things treated as such. Then will the Church and 
the world see the incalculable benefit upon Church 
piety, and aggressiveness of infant baptism and the 
membership of children. 



INDEX. 



Abraham, revelation of God to, 14$ ; 
gospel preached to, 14 ; Church in 
family of, 147 ; circumcision of, 1G2. 

Acts of the Apostles, if lost, what ? 173 ; 
teachings of, 171-201 ; requisites to 
the study of, 171. 

Adam, head of the race, 68, 78 ; moral 
status of children under, 51-96 ; fall 
of, not a surprise to God, 97 ; human 
nature under, how represented, 97 ; 
contrast between him and Christ, 
99 ; Article of the Church on fall of, 80. 

Adoption, Roman law of, and house- 
hold baptism, 36, 37. 

Alexandria, Clement of, on Epistle of 
Barnabas, 42 ; on tradition, 197. 

Ambrose, tendency of his anthropol- 
ogy, 75 ; on baptism, 213. 

Ante-Xicene Period, Christian writers 
against iniquities of, 41. 

Antipedobaptist reasons for infant sal- 
vation identical with those for child- 
membership, 33. 

Apostolical Constitutions, date of, 
quoted, 48. 

Apostolic Church, condition of the 
world when it began, 7-13 ; would it 
save the children ? 32 ; what it must 
do to compete with world religions, 
34, 35, 40 ; its message to the Disper- 
sion, 38 ; its realization of the family 
idea, 38, 39; position of children in, 
172, ff. 

Aristotle prohibits nurture of un- 
healthy children, 27 ; recommends 
limitation of number born, ibid. ; his 
philosophy support of Augustinian- 
ism, 72. 

Arcadia, girls beaten with rods in, 29. 

Armiuius on infant guilt, 71, 115. 

Arminianism unsatisfactory in its 
treatment of infant depravity, 53; 
rejects doctrine of infant guilt, 88, 



91, 115; "Wesleyan, anthropological 
teachings of, 78, 117, 118. 

Article of Religion, Ninth (Church of 
England), on hereditary guilt, how 
treated by "Wesley, basis of, S9. 

Athenagoras on marriage, 40 ; plea for 
Christians, 41. 

Atonement, the, Irenceus on relation 
of to children, 45 ; principal theories 
of relation of children to, 58 ; rela- 
tion of all children to, 66 ; need of for 
children, 94, 96; its effect, 90, 10S; 
not an aftertli ought, 97; Pauline 
teaching of concerning the race, 99 ; 
its extent in lime, 101; Dr. Fisk's 
views of concerning children. 117; 
Fletcher's views, Pope's, 106; Bishop 
Merrill's, 109, 124; fundamental 
ground for child-membership, 54 ; lor 
baptism, 215. 

Augustine on hereditary guilt, epistle 
to Jerome, 69 ; his exegesis, 71 ; nov- 
elty of his doctrine, 72, 75 ; triumph 
of his anthropology, 76. 

Baptism, Church membership founded 
on erroneous, 56 ; Tertullian on, 74; 
household, from stand-point of Ro- 
man idea of family, 37; baptism of 
children and Christ's teaching, 137 ; 
makes no moral difference between 
children, 64 ; proselyte baptism, 180 ; 
sketch of history of infant baptism 
215-220. 

Baal, sacrifice of children to, by He- 
brews, 22-24. 

Barnabas, Epistle of, its teaching on 
children, 42. 

Basis for dogma of hereditary guilt, 68. 

Bingham on infant training in the 
Primitive Church, 49. 

Birth, moral equality of children at 
61,65. 

227 



228 



INDEX. 



Bloomfield on Acts i, 3, 136 ; on Luke 

ii, 42, 169. 
Briggs, Dr. Charles A., reference to, 

59, note. 

Calvinism, theory of respecting moral 
state of children, 58, 65; difficulties 
of, 60 ; arguments against, 62 ; re- 
jected by Methodism, 89 ; Whedon on, 
90, 118. 

Carthaginians, worship of Moloch 
among, 21 ; Lactanlius on their cus- 
tom of sacrificing children, 22 ; wor- 
ship abolished by the Romans, 22. 

Carthage, Council of on child member- 
ship, 49 ; infant readers among the 
clergy of, 49. 

Catechumens, 43, note. 

Children, causes for condition of in 
heathenism, 13 ; relation of unbelief 
to birth of, 14 ; rights of disregarded 
in Rome, 17 ; exposition of, 19, 26, 28; 
exposition of approved by philoso- 
phers, 27,31 ; the practice condemned 
by Church fathers, 41, 42; by Chris- 
tian laws, 50; sacrifice of , 20, 22-25 ; 
whipping of, 26 ; parents' power over, 
29, 30 ; position of in theological sys- 
tems, 51 ; relation of to the Church, 
54, 56 ; moral status of, 57, 101 ; justi- 
fication of, 108, 114; position of in 
Old Testament Church, 161, ff. ; edu- 
cation of, 167; when full members, 
169, 170; position of in New Testa- 
ment Church, 171; circumcision of, 
188; members of New Testament 
Church, 189. 

Church, probable relation of to heathen 
children, 32, 34, 35; not for adults 
only, 38; children in, 39, 46, 47,49, 
124 ; Christ's recognition of such 
membership. 125-129 ; objections, 57, 
137 ; ground for the same, 54, 130, 
137 (see " Children "J ; definition of, 
55 ; unity of, 140, 158 ; perpetuity of, 
152, 154 ; the Church and the king- 
dom, 134-136. 

Cicero on the Twelve Tables, 29 ; on 
universal depravity, 84. 

Circumcision, token of Abrahamic cov- 
enant, 162 ; obligatory, 162 ; condi- 
tion of admission to Old Testament 
Church, 163 ; its symbolism, 164, 165 ; 
when received, 165 ; contention over 
in Jerusalem Church. 188, ff. 



Communion, infant, 220; where first 
found, 222 ; child communion, 223. 

Covenant with Adam, Dr. Hodges' 
view of, 77 ; Abrahamic, the, 147 ; 
through faith, 150 ; everlasting, 151 ; 
Pauline argument on, 151 ; Peter's 
sermon not antagonistic to, 175 ; chil- 
dren enter into, 177 ; Proselytes of 
the, 177. 

Confessions of faith on original sin, 71. 

Cremer on Romans v, 19, 113. 

Cyprian, his epistle to Fidus, 212. 

DEBEOGLiEon toleralion of Augustus, 
8, note ; his mistake concerning Calo, 
11, note. 

Depravity, 79 ; inherited, 82 ; univer- 
sality of, 83-86 ; Church Fathers op- 
posed to Western doctrine of, 73; 
modern philosophers' recognition of, 
83 ; Greek and Latin writers on, 84, 
85 ; Church of England on, 89 ; Meth- 
odist Church on, ibid.; not punish- 
able, 88. 

Delitzsch on New Testament idea of the 
Church and kingdom, 136. 

De Wette on Romans v, 19, 113. 

Didache, the, on instruction of chil- 
dren, on child-murder, 43, 44. 

Divorce, frequency of in Rome, 15 ; 
laws against, ibid. 

Ecclesia, its meaning, Hebrew equiv- 
alent, 144. 

Edah, signification of, 142, 143. (See 
"Kahal.") ' 

Edersheim, note of on Rabbinic views 
of the kingdom, 133 ; objection of to 
identity of Church and kingdom, 
134. 

Eliberis, Council of, canon of quoted, 49. 

Emperors, Roman, care of some of for 
children, 35. 

Empire, Roman, extent of in New Tes- 
tament times, 7 ; wickedness in, 9, 
10-13. 

Epictetus on depravity, 84. 

Exposition of children (see "Chil- 
dren"); of Confession of Faith ou 
assurance, 60. 

Faith, in Old Testament, 185. 
Faithful, signification of, 207. 
Family, decline of among the Romans, 
15; basis of in Roman law, 29; child- 



INDEX. 



229 



life iii Jewish, 166 ; education begins 
in, 224. 

Fathers' Church, The, on iniquities 
practiced on childhood, 41-50 ; op- 
posed to Augustinianism, 73; on 
child-mem hership and baptism, 210. 

Free Gift, 105 ; effect of, 107 ; Watson's 
view of, objected to, 108, 109 ; Dr. 
Fisk on, 117. 

Gentiles shall enter the Church, 155 ; 
are grafted in, 159 ; Paul's argument 
on conversion of, 159; children of 
circumcised, 186. 

Ger, meaning and position of, in Juda- 
ism, 176, 177. 

Gibbon, 7, note; on the exposition of 
children, 18. 

Godet on Romans v, 19, 113. 

Greece, influence of on Rome, 11, 18; 
exposition of children in, 26. 

Gregory Nyssa, on guilt in infants, 73. 

Gregory Naziauzeu, on infant baptism, 
213. 

Hebrews, worship of Moloch among 
the, 22-25; Christian, on exclusion of 
children from the Church, 38 ; rea- 
sons of Hebrew Christians for child- 
membership, 140 ; Epistle to on 
unity of the Church, 153. 

Hengstenberg on Ezekiel, 24. 

Hilgenfeld on Epistle of Barnabas, 42. 

llippolytus on tradition, 197. 

liodge, Dr., on headship of Adam, 93; 
his definition of Kathistemi, 110; 
refutation of, 111-113. 

Holy, meaning of in New Testament, 
' 202. 

Holy Ghost, work of on child nature, 
121, ff. 

Infant Guilt, 58, 68, ff. (See "Bap- 
tism.") 

Infant regeneration, 65, 114-124. 

Iguatius, 201. 

Irenaeus on tradition, 197 ; on infant 
salvation, 210. 

Isaiah, prophecy of, 125. 

James the Less, Advice of to Paul, 

189, 190. 
Jerusalem, children in Church at, 185. 
Josephus, 160, 178. 



Justin Martyr on child-membership, 
44, 211 ; death of his friends, 46. 

Justification, infant, 58,67,99-113,117, 
118 ; Merrill on, 109. 

Juvenal, 9, 12. 

Kahal, definition of, 142-146. (See 

" Edah.") 
Kant, 83. 

Kimchi, R , error of, 24. 
Kingdom of Heaven, the formula, 133 ; 

meaning of, 134 ; the Church and the, 

135-138. 
Knapp, Dr., ou original sin, 87. 

Lactantius, 41, 73. 

Lacedeiuon, exposition of children in, 
25, 26. 

Laocoon, the, symbol of original de- 
pravity, 97. 

Luthardt on religious education, 52, 
note. 

Martensen, 103. 

Membership of children. ( See 

" Church.") 
Merrill, Bishop, on infant justification 

109. 
Mesopotamia, practices of the Churches 

in, 195, 199, 217. 
Moloch, worship of, 20-25. 

Nadal's, Dr., statement refuted, 118. 
Neander on infant baptism, 216, 217. 
Nicene Ante-, Period, iniquities of, 41 
Ninth Article Church of England, re- 
jected, 89. 

Oehler on Deuteronomy vi, 6, 185. 

Olshausen on imputation, 113. 

Orient, influence of on Rome, 13. 

Origin of antagonism to child-member- 
ship, 39, 214. 

Origeu on Epistle of Barnabas, when 
born, 46, 207 ; referred to, 73, 196, 198, 
208, 211. 

Oikia and Oikos, meaning of, 200; the 
Oikia never baptized, 201. 

Ovid on universal depravity, 84. 

Practicic of First Churches, 195, 198. 
Fatria Potestas, Roman law, 29, 36,37. 
Pelagius, doctrine of, 57, 75, 219. 
Petrobrussians first opposers of child- 
membership, 215. 



230 



INDEX. 



Plutarch on the laws of Lycurgus, 25. 

Pope, Dr., on the atonement, 104, 106. 

Position of children in Old Testament 
and New Testament, 1G1-170, 171, ff. 

Proselytes, 176-179, baptism of, 180-182. 

Probation of Children, 169, 225. 

Principle, fundamental, of child-mem- 
bership, 54. 

Rawlinson, religions of ancient world, 
22. 

Raymond, Dr., on original sin, 87, 91 ; 
on justification, 108. 

Recognition, Christ's, of moral charac- 
ter of children, 128. 

Regeneration of infants, Westminster 
Confession on, 59; Fletcher, 116; 
Wesley, 67, note, 111 ; Whedon, 117, 
118; what it involves, 119; what it is 
in infants, 120-123. 

Renau quoted, note, 13. 

Reuss, reference to views of, 42, 94, 
100. 

Sacrament, definition of, 215; relation 

of children to, ibid. 
Sacrifice of children, 20-26, 41. 
Saturn, worship of, 21. 
Seneca, 9 ; on child-murder, 31. 
Sin, original, 68 ; Council of Trent on, 

70; Church Fathers on, 73 ; defini- 

lion of, 79, 86. (See" Article Ninth.") 
Socrates, indifference of, concerning 

children, 27. 

Tacitus, 9 ; his description of Rome, 

10 ; on the Julian laws, 15. 
Terence, reference to, 31. 



Tertullian on child-murder, 41, 209, 

211 ; on divorce, 16. 
Testimony of ancient historians to 

child-membership, 49. 
Tholuck, note, 100. 

Unbelief, in Rome, 8 ; among the 
Athenians, 10, 11 ; effect of on child- 
hood, 13 ; Rousseau, 14. 

Valentinian Law, 19, 50. 

Vatican, statue in, 98. 

Versions, Itala, Vulgate, Arabic, 132 ; 

Septuagint, 144, 145; Peshito, 195. 

196, note. 
Vitringa on Kahal and Edah, 143, 144, 

note, 145. 
Virtue in Rome, 8, 13, 15, 16. 

Watson on justification, 108; objec- 
tions to his view, 109. 

Wesley on progressive salvation, G7 
note ; on Ninth Article, and prevent- 
ing grace, 97, note; on child-member- 
ship, 117; on 1 Corinthians vii, 12, 
203. 

Whedon, 90 ; on sin, 92 ; on the phrase, 
" All have sinned," 93 ; on infant re- 
generation, 114-119. 

Will, freedom of, 79, 80 ; change of, in 
regeneration, 119. 

Young children brought to Christ, 
130 ; readers in the Church, 49 ; in- 
scriptions to, 207, 208, 209. 

Zosimus, a faithful, 207. 
Zoilus, the Corrector, 209. 



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